Indifference
by Lethanon
Summary: Sweepers are offered a retrieval Gig, and Duo agrees to take it on. 1x2, 3x5, past 3x4x5, M 5.
1. Chapter 1

1:

Sunlight. Warmth. He spent so much of his time without both these days, all he found himself wanting when he had a moment to himself was to lie in it and have it sink in. Sink all the way to his cold bones and try to warm up the core, which seemed horribly absent of late.

"Kid!" Honestly? That was getting tiring.

"Howard? I am not fifteen fucking years old anymore!" He had a name, and he wished they would use it. Not because he disliked Kid, but because if they didn't use it he was starting to worry he might forget what it was.

"Uhuh...got another gig, but uh...she's a doozy."

Sighing, Duo switched off the intercom and forced himself up. He didn't look at the way the sun hit the deck, or the little rainbows it created when it bounced off the water he'd sloughed to drain the oil, leaving a slick of multicoloured magic because he couldn't afford the distraction. Rainbows were for innocent people.

The Sweepers had boomed since the war, but it was the same hardworking Crew of would be pirates it had always been. It had been a logical place to go after everything ended and the dust settled. Not that there had been a whole lot of dust, things had pretty much gone as Duo had expected them to.

Quatre was off buying half the universe, Trowa was traipsing along on his heels like a damn puppy, ever since that threesome mess that had gone on with Wufei, throwing the occasional knife at whatever idiot thought it would be a good idea to try to kill Mr Winner, and Heero had taken to the job of political bodyguard after that first ridiculous attempt on Miss Dorlian's life. Which had left Duo...being Kid. Oh, and there was Wufei, but he'd had that stint with Preventers that went sour and the threesome mess, and he'd lain so low ever since even Duo had given up looking for him, so whatever. The point of his reality was he was alone, and the only people he spoke to on a regular basis were Sweepers, which meant all he ever got to talk about was sex, his lack of it, and metal. Which really, was most guys' dream but he'd tired of it pretty damn quickly.

The problem was, he didn't feel like changing it. His life sucked, was boring as hell, and there was absolutely no inclination whatsoever to do anything about it. It wasn't like the world needed saving, so why should he get off his ass in the morning? He didn't even need the money anymore, he'd done so many outlandish jobs for Howard over the last few years and spent so little of it his bank accounts were starting to rival Quatre's for zeros.

"You moping again?" Howard muttered as soon as he entered their briefing room and Duo just smirked, going no faster as he slowly sank into the chair opposite Howard's desk and performed his usual slump routine. It was a well practiced thing, with a leg outstretched under the desk and the other draped just so over the arm of the chair, and then his back had to curve just so into the worn seat back so he could drape his arm over the shoulder so when it hung his fingertips were right by the end of his braid and his other hand was still free to pick up the paperwork, and toss it heroically back on the desk when he felt like it.

"Are you comfortable?" Was all Howard said, glaring a little. He'd been getting increasingly peeved in his old age, but Duo knew he still cared. A little too much, in Duo's opinion. Caring like that would only get him hurt, in the long run.

"What's the gig?" Not a mission, he didn't have those anymore. Not even a job, because he didn't need one of those. Just a gig. Something to do to while away the time, because there was nothing better to do.

The folder Howard dropped on the table between them was larger than it should have been. As if Howard had done a lot of research into whatever this was. It had a government seal on it, as well, and Duo really hated those. Worse, when he opened it the letter on the top had Relena's signature on it and that just sucked. Doozy didn't begin to cover the things that had her seal of approval. Because when the government asked pirates for help, it meant everything else had failed.

"If I have to read all this, it's just going to take me that much longer to say yes," he pointed out, because he could not be bothered to read all that. How much of it was even necessary? That was a ridiculous amount of crap when he was sure you could have said what you wanted in a sentence. Maybe two if it was really important and you needed to sign it I'm a pompous ass.

"It's a retrieval and seizure of goods order," Howard said softly, and it was only the tone of voice that kept Duo from immediately saying no. Because when the government had to seize your goods it meant you'd made something really cool and had refused to sell it to them, so they were just going to take it instead. Duo drew a line at stealing someone else's hard work in some other bastards name.

"You know I won't take those."

"This is an order, Duo. You take this job, or you're not here in the morning."

That got his attention, but didn't break his slump. It just made him angry and he glared at Howard across the table. He didn't need the gig, but he had nothing better to do. That didn't mean he was going to take ultimatums. He stood slowly, casually even. He pushed the folder back into the middle of the table and put his hands in his pockets as he headed for the door.

"I'll see you round. Maybe."

Howard didn't bother trying to say anything, and Duo wasn't hurt by his silence. Really.

Without a job, he didn't really have anywhere to go. He had a car, so he went and sat in it for a while, but he didn't even have a house to go home to. He'd always just slept on deck while he waited for the next job, and it had never been far between each. Howard had made sure he was always busy, just the way Duo liked it.

Until now. He'd never forced Duo to take a job before, that was damn weird behaviour right there. And it had seemed almost personal, as if the gig was for Howard, not the petty princess of the world. And Howard shared Duo's opinion of seizure notices. And if it required a retrieval then the guy who had what was to be seized wasn't giving it up without a fight, and Howard really disapproved of those sorts of jobs. So why was he so adamant Duo take this one?

"God fucking damn it!" He didn't care. Really. He was just a really dumb cat and curiosity was getting the better of him. Again.

Howard didn't so much as blink an eye when Duo came back in, sat back down heavily in the opposite seat and picked up the folder. After a while Howard got up and put the kettle on, just letting Duo read.

Something...moved inside of Duo. Some intangible little piece of emotion he'd thought long buried and he read slower, forced himself to digest what the piece of paper in front of him was saying. And the pages after it. So many little clues and snippets of information, meticulously sought out and out together until they formed a clear map. This wasn't Howard's work, or even some faceless government official. It was war like and specific and a lot of it was dirty, quite literally, the pages caked in grease and filth.

"You want me to retrieve a little girl."

"Well, as I understand it she's not so little anymore."

"Whatever," Duo grumbled. He still didn't get why Howard was so persistent they take the gig. It sounded like trouble. The deep shit kind. "It stinks."

"You stink. Take a shower, think it through and when your heads on straight I'll arrange a launch."

"What's the point? Going there, I'll smell like all the rest in a matter of hours anyway. If I go in smelling like roses it'll just slow me down." People wouldn't trust him, would question his presence and even after he settled into it, they would still remember and wonder why he'd been so clean when he first arrived. Clean people didn't move there.

"Fine. Pack your bag and I'll get you a ship."

Just like that. Duo grabbed the folder and moved. Fast, because that was the way he liked to move and because the faster he moved the sooner he would be on a ship. Alone.

It wasn't hard to collect his things, his bag wasn't that unpacked from his last gig. He just shoved things back in and put the folder in on top and closed it up before heading to their weapons locker and checking out a few choice pieces. Knives, because he'd need those where he was going, a laser pistol, neuro-shock taser...the essentials. He didn't question that these were the essentials in his life, the war had made him that way and he liked it staying that way.

He glared at his own reflection in the small mirror while he at least washed his face, trying to fathom what his reflection was thinking.

"This is such a dumb fucking idea," he muttered but it was done. He was going and he knew there was no changing his mind. It couldn't possibly end as badly as he suspected it was going to, right? Right.

Howard was already on the deck, a helicraft coming in to land.

"You're set to launch in an hour from the coast base by San Fran. Take care kid. The Valley's no place for mistakes."

"Stop worrying old man. You get any more wrinkles and I won't know which end is your face."

He was rewarded with a slap on his back so hard his teeth clashed together painfully, and Howard stood watching as he got on the helicraft and it took off without actually landing, sweeping him into the sky. Howard was a small speck in a great sea by the time Duo collected his thoughts enough to concentrate on where he was going. And why.

The fact of the matter was, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. That was also why it was so damn interesting. He pulled the folder out of his bag and began sifting through it again, frowning because he was certain he recognised the handwriting most of the notes were made in but couldn't place it.

It was also such an interesting mess of details that on the surface didn't seem related at all, but collectively left a trail. It wasn't the sort of thing a normal person would have been able to put together, which left a very short list of people who might have been behind it. And if they'd bothered to collect all the clues, Duo didn't understand why they hadn't gone in and retrieved the cargo themselves.

Little things, but they were interesting and each was waking him up a little more, sharpening his senses because whatever the real facts were behind all this, the person who had compiled the folder knew them and couldn't act on them. And was relying on Duo to do the legwork for them. Which was just...weird. Duo didn't even know that many people, let alone any that would ask for help. Not that he thought this constituted asking, at all, but he had friends who would probably think it was.

They got to the launch site and the helicraft set him down by the ship Howard had arranged. It was nothing fancy on the outside, but like all of Howard's craft it was what was on the inside that counted. This one had been chosen deliberately, because it looked like it would barely function on the outside. An old shell they had salvaged not long after the war had been gutted and rebuilt from the inside out, but they'd left that old shell as a tribute to whatever it had been before.

"Hello _Reincarnation_. Long time no see." He stroked the fought metal of the hull, amused because it really was a lovely ship inside, but there was no way in hell anyone with half a brain would look at her and want to step within. That was why she was fun. Howard usually kept her locked up for special occasions, which only made Duo all the more wary that he'd brought her out now. Though, considering the destination, her rust bucket appearance was only going to help him.

The inside was nothing like the exterior, all brand new, shining, stunningly crafted state of the art astrogear. He checked every room before the bridge, cargo bay, captains cabin, passenger cabin, kitchen, storage..._bridge._ Everything was stocked and stowed, all he had to do s leave so he dumped his bag in these captains cabin and went about getting ready for launch.

It wasn't a long procedure, but he liked to draw it out. Liked to do it old school, calling out random numbers and confusing the hell out of the ground crew. It wasn't his fault they didn't let you play music or sing while launching. You had to be sixty thousand miles clear of atmosphere before you could cut comms and go where would wanted. So Duo entertained himself tormenting the surface team until he reached that distance.

Then it was playtime. The music was loud and abrasive, and he locked himself in the cargo bay for several hours going through his physical training regime. He had to admit, it was hard, but he'd decided after the war to be the best, to maintain a level of professionalism only the other pilots would understand, and to be the best he had to be as strong as Heero Yuy, and make it look as effortless. So he'd put on some kilos, in hard unbending muscle and if Heero thought he could out-cardio him he had another thing coming. Duo knew he was fit. Hell, fit didn't begin to cover it. It was why he'd survived so many crazy gigs that should have seen him shredded, and he was damn proud of it.

But it was crazy, and it hurt like hell to push himself that far on a regular basis. Whenever he felt like stopping he just imagined Heero self destructing.

It was also a good way to pass time.

It was time for dinner by the time he finished and Duo showered half assed and went to heat up a plate of steak and veg. He sat on the bridge eating it, watching the stars. The sun was a distant memory, again, quite literally. But the stars were in no way a poor substitute. They surrounded him as the ship slid through the darkness, lights off deliberately, just in case anyone was stupid enough to see him and wonder what he was doing. He didn't feel like killing people today, and while he might find himself in a mood to let them go, something about the gig told him that was a bad idea.

After a while, he slept, setting a proximity alarm and slipping away into his dreams. No that he remembered them anymore.

He woke to the familiar bleating of the ship and hurriedly pulled his boots back on, striding back onto the bridge and sucking in a long breath.

Mettle Valley had earned its reputation. At its heart was a core of the remnants of L5, reassembled and patched up until it had basic life support. From there several long chains of tubing extended, each with hundreds of docking bays, ships hanging off them like leeches, some permanently others in transit. The whole thing looked like a fat, hairy rusted octopus, and was just as venomous. The Valley was a cesspool of piracy and black market trafficking that somehow masqueraded as a poor mans alley whenever anyone actually dared send troops to clean it out. After all, you couldn't get a warrant for every ship docked, when you didn't even know which ships were docked at any given time. And it wasn't hard to see a Preventers armada coming, and fly your ship away until hell had blown over.

There had been endless discussions about what to do with L5. Many thought it should be destroyed completely, others considered it a sacred site and refused to even consider touching it. He wondered if they'd actually been out to see what their sacred site really looked like. And what went on in it.

There were no docking procedures in Mettle Valley. Duo did a few laps before spotting a docking bay that looked promising and he went about attaching himself and the _Reincarnation. _Then he spent an hour activating the security protocols he installed in all of Howard's ships. Ones he had sent to Heero just to see if he could crack them, and when he couldn't had kept and used. Only then.

He didn't really feel like going out just yet, so he waited until he was sure people had forgotten about him docking, then snuck out. He dressed in his usual fare of torn jeans he'd owned for at least six years, so discoloured from grease and grime he doubted anyone would know what they originally looked like, and a black tshirt. At least...it was black now. He wasn't sure what colour it started life as. His watch was a two dollar thing he picked up on his last gig and he tucked his braid up under his hat, preferring people thought he had a strange shaped head than risk recognition. A gundam pilot in Mettle Valley would find out nothing. A deformed, broke hillbilly would probably get everything, and more.

He'd only spent a few days in the Valley, years ago when it had still been considered a red zone, before the government gave in and labelled it black. Meaning, banned from the empire or some shit. Duo had almost been proud of the Valley for the achievement, only he didn't really care enough to feel it. But it was impressive, nonetheless.

It had changed since then. There wasn't the sense of camaraderie he'd felt. They'd been criminals, yes, but they'd been in it together. It was darker now, each in it for himself, and some of the trades being pedaled didn't sit well with Duo at all, especially considering what he was supposed to be retrieving. Why bring a little girl here, unless you intended to sell her to the highest bidder?

He went to the gunrunners first.

"You don't have a face I recognise," was a common complaint and Duo had to admit he was new, destitute, kind of stupid. And yes, came in on that rust bucket and was pretty sure it was never leaving again. Old Duke, who Duo recognised from his previous trip to the Valley, took pity on him and gave him a job, because Duo at least proved he knew guns. Duke made sure of that, testing him on every weapon he had and then making him kill a man to prove he knew how to use it. It wasn't unusual and Duo didn't blink because everyone in the Valley was guilty. That was why they were there.

"How do you know so much about guns?"

"Grew up ground side. My daddy taught me." His father had taught him a lot of things, but shooting sure as hell hadn't been one of them. How to run, how to hide, how to push everything you felt so far down you would choke if you even tried to find it again. Sure, those lessons he taught just fine without having to be there at all. But shooting a gun, that had been a lesson from someone else entirely. And how to shoot it well from someone else again.

"Well, your Daddy knew his shit. I'll give you a run to test you out. Two days from now."

He didn't thank him. They weren't those kinds of men. It was a trial and Duo would pass it and that would be his cover. Until then he needed to keep his head down and try to remain inconspicuous. Not that hard if he'd just gone back to his ship and waited it out, but he had other things to do.

The drug traders at least we're happy to talk, too high on their own junk not to. They made jokes and Duo let them, grinning and laughing at his own expense but in the end they didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. Maybe because they weren't as high as they pretended, or maybe because they honestly didn't know.

He didn't even try to approach the counterfeit tables, having nothing to offer and no desire to get caught up in the trade. It was messy at the best of times, and required for too much contact with government bullshit. It was a desperate,stupid man that got caught up in that.

The trade he looked for was the oldest in history, the most insidious and the most prolific. Sex. He roamed the brothels, acting like any hillbilly that just got off from a long space trip and wanted a peek, and anything else he could get for as little cash as possible. It wasn't hard to act when he saw what was on offer and remembered just how long it had been since he so much as stroked himself off.

But he wasn't there for pleasure and he quickly identified the leaders, narrowing it down to three competing houses, controlling the trade. There was a sale happening in two days and Duo just grinned because wasn't that the best timing ever.

But it wasn't quite what he was looking for. The Valley didn't have any docking rules but that didn't mean it had no data, so Duo went back to the _Reincarnation _and spent a few hours hacking into the systems that ran Mettle Valley, finding the record of ships docking. It didn't say what the ship was, just listed the bay number and the time the event occurred but that was good enough for Duo. He printed it off and grabbed a nutrition bar before heading out to see just which ships had docked in the last three days. The list wasn't short, but it cut down his search criteria enough to make it doable.

Some of the ships were such pieces of junk Duo wanted to blow them up just to rid the world of them. They didn't deserve to be called ships, and their owners clearly didn't deserve to own them. He was pleased to see that most of the really nice ships belonged to gunrunners. He didn't want people making assumptions about the _Reincarnation_ when it was by far the best ship in the Valley. They just didn't know it yet.

A few of the ships looked interesting and could have been what he was looking for but they lacked that bright spark of acknowledgment in his gut that usually told him he was on the right track. He wasn't sure why, but he found himself leaving a particular ship until last. There was just something about it, about where it was docked and why someone might choose to dock there. Not that there was anything wrong with that spot, Duo might have even chosen it himself, had it not already been occupied. But it was the fact he might have chosen it himself that nagged at him.

It was impossible to tell time in the Valley. The station was lit to appear like it was night all the time, and outside...well. Space was dark. End of story. But Duo guessed he'd been around a day, and his watch confirmed his suspicions. He needed to sleep, so he left the last ship for the morning, having eliminated the rest as his target, which really only left the one. Unless they'd come, dumped their cargo and left, but that wasn't likely. Not with a sale in two days time.

So he slept, because he would need his energy. If he dreamed, he couldn't recall upon waking.

He went to Old Duke first, just to make sure they were still good for tomorrow. The man just laughed and shook his head, slapping Duo hard on the back in an eerily family way.

"Never fear Daddy's Boy, you'll get your chance." He didn't see how going from Kid to Boy s a step up but sighed and nodded, waving and making his departure before they got any weird ideas about other things they could do with their Daddy's Boy. He was painfully grateful they knew just how good a shot he was. It should stop their ideas getting too crazy.

His job reestablished, Duo went about scoping out his target. As soon as he saw the ship he knew he'd guessed right. It looked shabby enough on the outside, but he knew a ship that had been scrubbed to make it look bad, and this screamed that. It wasn't a bad ship, but it was standard issue. Too standard. Deliberately standard. It was so standard Duo wanted to stand in front of it, point and laugh his ass off. He refrained, barely.

He introduced himself to the owners of a ship two docks down. Manfred Stone and his rust bucket the Jolly Jaunt. It was quite possibly the shittest ship Duo had ever set foot on, and he said as much to Manfred, who had quite possibly the crappest name. Thus their conversation went, until it divulged into a drinking match and poor Manfred found himself unconscious, locked tidily away in his bedroom and Duo sat out front, keeping an eye on the joint like a good friendly citizen.

She hadn't changed much. Taller, obviously, lean and muscled like her father had been. She'd kept her hair short, and still wore a stupid hat, but he had to admit Howard was right and she wasn't a little girl any more. She looked ridiculously good in Valley wear, tight black jeans and a checked work shirt, covered in filth and he could tell by the dirt engrained in her hands that it wasn't just for show. She actually worked that way, and seemed to enjoy it. She was comfortable here, and that didn't fit the information in the folder at all.

Curious anew, Duo spent a lot of time just observing her as she carted cargo into their cargo bay, calling out occasionally to someone else inside.

And every time a reply came floating back Duo struggled to hear it and held his breath, as if daring his hearing to be wrong when he already knew from the facts he'd been given that he was right. But it had been so long since he heard that voice, he'd forgotten what it could do to him. He'd forgotten how he feared it a little, and how everything in him seemed to want to walk into it, and be lost forever.

He spent a long time after she had left again just pulling himself together. That didn't make it any easier to get up. He staked the ship, as if it might bite and he wasn't stupid. There were surveillance cameras around the hull, placed just so and he unhooked five trip wires before he even got close to the vessel. But it was simple, basic things when you were used to thinking that way and it just made Duo smile, because he was better than this now. So much better.

He snuck in through a side hatch and got a quick layout of the ship, a model he was familiar with anyway, but he checked nothing had been moved around. Everything was where he expected, as was He.

Taller, wider in the shoulders, but still easily recognisable. He looked damn good, hair brilliantly messy and clothes torn in all the right places. His jaw was still set in that determined way that screamed I have a mission. Duo licked his lips and raised his gun, smirking when Heero spun in his chair, disbelieving that anyone could have gotten in without him knowing before recognition dawned.

"Duo!" Clearly not what he was expecting.

"Look who's been a bad, bad boy."


	2. Chapter 2

2:

"What the hell are you doing here?" The shock wasn't wearing off any time soon and Duo was happy to sit back and reap the rewards of his labour. That look on Heero's face, the hitch in his voice...they made taking this job worth it. He would have done it for free, just for that.

"Sweepers," Heero realised, but he still looked confused. "Why would they contract Sweepers?"

"You mean, besides the fact _you_, of all people, kidnapped _Mariemaia Kushrenada_, of all people, and brought here _here_, of all places?" Because really, none of that sounded good, and almost all of it sounded illegal, so who the hell else would they call? Duo would have called Sweepers as well, and he was one!

But Heero apparently didn't get it and continued to sit there, wide eyed and stumped. Duo knew he had to be thinking, and fast, but this had certainly never featured in his plans. Not that it should of, Duo had to admit, the last thing he had expected to see in that folder was Heero's name in the same sentence as Kidnapper. Though in all fairness, she wasn't a kid anymore.

"I didn't kidnap her," Heero frowned and finally slumped back in his chair, raking a hand through his messy hair and eyeing Duo's gun. "You can put that away..." But they both knew Duo wouldn't. Yet. Maybe ever.

"Well, the pretty contract I got says you did." And he was reminded again about some of the stranger details in that report. He'd thought at first Heero had written it, until he realised it wasn't Heero's handwriting, because that Duo knew backwards, and Heero wouldn't go and make a report about himself so someone could catch him. Even he wasn't that thorough. So where the hell had it come from?

"She begged me..."

"To take her?" That had Duo laughing, but there was something in Heero's face that made him want to believe it. Or maybe it was something in himself, Duo couldn't really say. He didn't trust himself where this man was concerned.

"No!" Heero was glaring now, frustrated and clearly struggling to decide on a course of action. His first instinct had to be kill Duo, but he hadn't done that, which was interesting.

"So you didn't take her? Because the girl I spent the last hour watching sure looks like her."

"It is her, but I didn't kidnap her!" Heero groaned, starting to sound exasperated. It just made Duo grin, because the game was old and familiar and they both knew how to play it.

"She just asked you take her on a joyride?"

"No! God damnit...will you put the damn gun down?"

"No."

They glared at each other for a long time before Heero actually blinked and looked aside, sighing and staring out at space. It was a familiar look; one Duo had seen in the mirror one time too many. One of carelessness. He could have killed Duo, but he hadn't because he plain and simply couldn't be bothered. He was here because he needed something to do, and somehow Kushrenada had woken his curiosity.

Duo lowered the gun, but didn't put it away, keeping it firm and tight in his own hand.

"I have a retrieval order for Mariemaia, and a warrant for you."

"We're not going anywhere," Mariemaia said softly and Duo barely kept himself in check because he hadn't heard even the slightest hint of her coming aboard. Not a breath, not a scuff, nothing. His gun was up in her face in a second and he coldly moved them around until she was sitting in the seat beside Heero.

Then he just stared at them, because they were the oddest damn criminal team he had ever seen, and it was very obvious she was in no way Heero's prisoner. Which made this gig only slightly less fun, because cuffing Heero would have made his day. Maybe he'd do it later anyway, just for fun.

"One of you had better start making sense," he noted softly and the amusement was fading fast. If she wasn't being sold at market tomorrow, he didn't need to be there, which meant he was making friendlies with gunrunners for no reason at all. That did _not_ sit well.

"I begged Heero to help me escape house arrest."

"She would go to prison if they thought she escaped, so I made it look like a kidnapping."

"So now you get to go to prison! That's fantastic!" Duo stared at them in disbelief but they just stared straight back at him as if any part of their story so far was sane. Escaping the UN house arrest order, knowing that everyone in the Earth Sphere would come hunting you down. And then pretending to kidnap her, knowing they would come hunt you down as well? That wasn't normal!

"Have you never heard of plastic surgery? Escape, change your face and start a new life. No need to mess up Mr Bodyguard's Hero of the World reputation."

"Maybe I wanted it messed up," Heero countered immediately and when he met Duo's gaze it was with cold steel, like in the old days. Duo had thought he had softened, that time with Relena and politics had finally helped him mellow. He'd been wrong. It just made him colder.

"So you both thought you could come hide out in Mettle Valley? Are you insane? This place is...is ...it's the Valley!"

"We know!" They grumbled in unison, looking like scolded children and that made Duo pause because at no point in his life had he ever imagined he would end up playing parent to either of them. Certainly not to Heero Yuy.

He gave up and sat in a chair, putting his gun in his lap and watching them. They'd come prepared, and seemed to know what they were doing. There was a large stock pile in the cargo bay, of food and general everyday goods. They expected to be here a while, or at least in space for a time without resupplying. They were dressed effectively...very, very effectively, he had to admit looking at Heero again. He'd never in his wildest fantasies imagined Heero that filthy, in clothing that casual, and looking quite so comfortable in it.

"We didn't come here to hide out, we're not suicidal," Heero noted and there was a hint of amusement in his voice. He was getting used to Duo's appearance, starting to formulate a plan around it and that didn't sit well with Duo.

"Then what are you doing here?"

Heero looked at Mariemaia and she squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. It was all Duo needed before he burst into hysterical laugher and pointed, and laughed some more.

"You don't even know! You brought her here and you don't even fucking know why! God, you really are the dumbest shit in the universe!" A pretty girl said go and Heero Yuy could be trusted to obey. Typical.

They were both glaring at him and Duo did not care. They were idiots, the pair of them, and while they were doing well he had no doubt that if he'd been able to find them with relative ease, others had done the same and were watching. Waiting to see what they were doing.

What Mariemaia was doing. And that was interesting, at least.

"What are you doing here, Fox?"

She blinked at the name and slowly her gaze went up to her hairline and she frowned at the orange hair before sighing.

"I was asked to come."

"By who?"

"A friend."

"Because enemies often ask you for favours? You're not helping Heero not get shot here."

"You wouldn't!"

"He would," Heero countered at the same time Duo said "I would." They stared at each other and rolled their eyes, because it was old and familiar and reminded them both of a thousand other situations just like this one.

But she wouldn't say. He could see it in the set of her shoulders and the way her head dropped when she glared at him. It was the same look her father got when he stubbornly dug his heels in.

"Okay. A friend of yours, let's call them Floozy..."

She laughed at that. He could only assume the name didn't match the friend, but that was fine.

"Floozy asked you to come to Mettle Valley...why?"

What could possibly tempt her to break out of custody and come to the Valley? It wasn't exactly a holiday destination. It wasn't even a good place to hide out from the world, since you were more likely to end up dead than if you handed yourself in for the death penalty.

"Because you were both too blind and selfish to come yourselves."

That got their attention. Even Heero was staring at her like she'd grown a second head, so Duo made sure he stared at her as if she'd grown three.

"Foxy, I promise you...I am many things but blind and selfish aren't among them. Well...maybe selfish. Sometimes." But blind? He could see just fine, thank you very much.

"Please," Mariemaia snorted softly. Very unladylike, not that Duo was one to judge, but still. Relena would not have approved. She looked at Heero then, really looked, and there was hatred in her eyes when she did. It startled all of them.

"When was the last time you returned an email? Or a phone call? Or even sat down to dinner with someone?"

"...I don't see how that matters."

"And you!" That glare was fully on Duo now, and she looked like she hated him even more. "You don't even have a fucking email address! I had to beg Howard to take that job and give it to you! Do you know what I had to promise, to get him to agree to even show you that stupid folder?"

"I'm guessing by the look on your face it was precious..." He had no idea, but he knew Howard would not have wanted to deal with her. He also knew Howard had been adamant he take the job, was going to fire him if he hadn't. Mariemaia was pretty, and young... "Don't be daft, the man's not that hard up and he hates prostitution!"

Heero and Mariemaia were both gaping at him now. So that wasn't it. He had no idea what else she could possibly offer the old man, but obviously it had been something good.

"You made that folder?" He had no idea what her handwriting looked like.

"No. I just delivered it." Which didn't help him figure out where the hell it came from at all.

"You have this folder with you?" Duo looked over at Heero and weighed up his options but in the end nodded because it was becoming very clear Heero was as confused as he was. That neither of them really knew what they were doing there anymore, and maybe it was time they started working together. Again.

It was so tempting to shoot them both, take a photo for evidence, and leave.

"I have it. On my ship." Howard's ship. Whatever, at this rate Duo was claiming it as payment because Howard clearly knew something Duo didn't. He'd been adamant Duo take the mission and Duo was curious enough now to want to know why.

"You're both blind, selfish, and really fucking stupid. I'm not telling you why you're here, you're just...muscle, or something. And a pilot, because I needed one of those."

Duo smirked and looked at Heero.

"Notice how you're the pilot?" Oh yeah. Heero just rolled his eyes and looked back at their captive, and Duo didn't miss the irony. They'd both been lured in by her, and Floozy. Whatever plot they had going, they'd managed to get pilots involved and he wondered if she really had any concept of what that meant.

But she was who she was. Of course she knew.

"I need to see that folder."

"I need to go to work," Mariemaia interjected.

"You have work?" Because while it hadn't been that hard to get in with the gunrunners he couldn't see them just adopting a young girl. He couldn't imagine what kind of work she had been able to get in the short time he knew they had been there.

"Yes. As you pointed out, I have breasts! And here they're worth money!"

"WHAT?" Heero and Duo raged in unison, and Duo was just grateful Heero hadn't known because he would have hated to have messed up that perfect face of his. Sure, she wasn't a child anymore but she was still somehow their responsibility and she should not, under any circumstances, be doing _that_!

"You said you were working in a bar!" Heero managed to ground out.

"I am. I just left out the topless part." And she seemed so damn smug about it too. Duo would have wiped that stupid grin off her face if Heero hadn't looked ready to do it for her, and looked scarier than he would have managed.

"You don't have a job anymore."

"That's not your decision, Heero." At least she was sticking to her guns, Duo had to give her that. Unfortunately, he disapproved of the use of said guns, in any situation.

"I have a job, it can cover us all for now."

"Oh, because mass murder is so much more appropriate than showing a little skin. At least mine's still living!"

"I'm not committing mass murder!" Duo stared at her, a little appalled because he hadn't told them he was gunrunning, so how had she known, and he wasn't in the habit of mass murder either. Not anymore, at any rate, and Yuy had totally taken a bigger head count by the end of the war. He thought.

"You're gunrunning? Are you out of your mind?" Heero was now giving him that look instead of Mariemaia, and it didn't seem anywhere near as funny when it was focused on him.

"I'm completely sane! And how the hell did you know what I was doing?"

"Oh please, you're Duo Maxwell. You hate traffickers of drugs and humans, and goods doesn't pay well enough to keep fattening that ridiculous bank account of yours on the side. That just leaves guns, because you don't have to take responsibility for what someone else does with the weapon. Which you should, just for the record."

"Since when is there a damn record?" Duo muttered, but he was more concerned with the things she knew. Like what he had in the bank, and the sorts of gigs he refused to take. She knew too much about him while he knew next to nothing about her. But how she knew those things was likely a much more interesting story.

"I think it's time we went and looked at that folder," Heero said softly and Duo had to agree. But they tied Mariemaia to a chair first with strict orders not to attempt escape because if they found her in her topless bar she wasn't getting out of it in one piece. Neither was the bar.

"You can't just kill everyone in a bar!" She struggled to get free of the rope, but Duo knew how to tie a knot, and Heero had checked it three times before adding his own just in case. She wasn't getting out anytime soon.

"Duo could," Heero finally answered and Duo gaped at him, but Heero just shrugged. "If they were bad enough." And that was better.

They left her there and made sure Duo left the ship first, ensuring they weren't seen together. Duo even went and checked on Manfred, but he was still out cold and wouldn't be up for a while yet.

He caught up with Heero in the back alleys of the central colony and overtook him, leading the way back to the Reincarnation, trusting Heero to make sure it didn't look like he was tailing him. He waited against the wall inside the cargo doors and shut it as soon as Heero was in, disappointed when Heero wasn't startled at all.

"Seriously. Mariemaia? You had to know all hell would break loose back home as soon as she went missing."

Heero was quiet for a while before he just shrugged.

"I was bored." And didn't care about the consequences. It wasn't like Heero, at least not the Heero Duo had known, but maybe he was getting tired of being the Hero of the World. It had to have an expiration date, right?

He led the way down to the bridge, aware of Heero scoping the ship out, stepping onto the bridge and just standing in the doorway, waiting for the invitation Duo eventually gave before taking a seat.

"Howard always knew how to make a nice ship," Heero observed and Duo had to let go a small piece of the anger he was feeling to agree. Howard made the best ships, and Duo wouldn't work for anyone else.

"He really threaten to fire you?"

"Yup," and it still stung. Howard was the closest thing to family he had, and it hurt that he had been so willing to let Duo go. Worse, he had no idea why. What was so special about that folder that he had been willing to toss Duo aside to see the gig complete? What had the Foxy princess told him to sway even the old man to her side?

"Ouch," Heero muttered and Duo scowled at him, because what did Heero know about family? Nothing at all.

"This is it," Duo spat, tossing the folder onto Heero's lap and sitting down in the other seat, spinning it idly and waiting to see what Heero could make of it.

He didn't expect Heero to laugh. A lot.

"You know…I didn't really find it that funny."

"Oh, it's not," Heero mumbled, but he was still grinning as he flicked through each piece of information. "It's just…_Floozy._"

"You recognise the writing too?"

"You don't remember whose it is, do you?" Heero was really grinning now and Duo wanted to punch it clean off his smooth face, but couldn't because he didn't know who wrote it, just knew it was familiar. But Heero knew.

And Heero was frowning now, his grin disappearing as he flicked through more pieces of information, his hands starting to hurry. Still precise, still the same blind determination, but hurried. As if he suspected something and was trying to prove himself wrong.

"Heero? Who's Floozy?"

"Trowa," Heero answered distractedly. "It's Trowa's writing. All of this is…"

"He can _write?_" It was a bad joke, but it was the best he had and really, he couldn't remember ever seeing the man pick up a pen. Knives, sure, but not pens. And all the correspondence he ever sent came through Quatre. But obviously some of it had been written by the other half.

"Trowa Barton hired Mariemaia to go to Mettle Valley?" Seriously? That was nuts. But Heero was still rummaging through the folder, looking for clues. Frowning.

"This doesn't make sense."

"Of course it doesn't make sense, it's freaking insane!" And made no sense.

"This folder is a retrieval order for Mariemaia, but half the evidence dates to transactions that took place long before Marie and I ever left Earth." Heero was already separating the information, having a timeline in his head Duo wasn't privy to but he watched Heero's hands, starting to see the pattern and taking in the finer details, like what each earlier transaction was and where it had taken place.

A lot of it from right here in Mettle Valley.

"How does Trowa have evidence of transactions from the Valley?" How did _anyone_ have that sort of evidence? It wasn't supposed to exist.

"Because he was here on business," Heero muttered, adding a few receipts to the pile. A diner, with a very specific amount spent at it.

"A dollar and two cents? Really?" It was a message, obviously, but how he had found anything worth that was beyond Duo.

"There are others like it," Heero muttered and they compiled a list of the places they were going to have to visit. They went back through the folder numerous times, looking for things that looked awry now they had a timeframe to work with and an awareness that they had been set up and sent to the Valley for a purpose.

"Marie knows why we're here. Why not just tell us so we can get it over and done with?"

"My guess is Trowa thought we wouldn't do it without coercion."

"That's…" He had been going to say ridiculous, but he remembered turning down the job at first, and wondered if there was something to that after all. A reason Howard had tried to force his hand.

"Marie knew I wouldn't take on gigs that involved certain kinds of trafficking. She was quite specific about it."

That got Heero's attention and Duo could almost hear the gears turning in his head.

"Why do you call them gigs?" That had not, in any way, been the question Duo was expecting and he glared at Heero as a result.

"Because that's what they are."

"If you say so." It was like the man was deliberately trying to avoid starting a fight with him, which only made Duo madder. The guy had seemed almost human during the Incident, and then went and punched him unconscious. Broke six of his ribs and landed him in hospital for months and not once came to visit. But he had plenty of time to parade all over the television with Relena raving about the Hero of the World. Not so much as a damn flower.

"You haven't spoken to Marie much?"

"You mean since the mess with Wufei? No."

"There was a mess with Wufei?" Now Heero was interested and Duo just stared at him, because maybe Marie was right and the man was stupid, or thick, or up himself. Hell, Duo already knew he was all those things, the rest of the world just hadn't figured it out yet.

"Yeah, he was working with Preventers when Marie got put under house arrest. Wufei was in that threesome thing with Trowa and Quatre…"

"WHAT?" Heero was gaping. Heero Yuy was actually _gaping_. Duo just stared, stumped because he'd been sure the threesome was common knowledge. Not common to the world, of course, that would have looked bad for Quatre's reputation, but common among those who knew them? Yes, it was. But Heero hadn't known. Which put Mariemaia's comments about them in a different context.

"Technically it was more Trowa sleeping with Quatre and Wufei, but I still call it a threesome, since neither Quatre or Wufei seemed to have a problem with it."

Heero just sat back in his chair and stared at the wall, wide eyed and looking like a space cadet. Duo reached out and waved a hand in front of his eyes and when Heero looked up at him again, took it as a sign to continue.

"So, to be near Trowa on weekends, Wufei volunteered for house arrest supervision on weekends."

"That…makes sense?" Heero didn't sound so sure.

"It does if you're having an affair with one of the most famous guys on Earth, not that you would know anything about that, since you're just famous and not sleeping around," Duo muttered a little more darkly than he had intended.

"That doesn't explain anything, Duo. It just makes my brain bleed." Where had Heero Yuy gotten that expression? Relena, probably. One too many bad words and whoops, brain bleed!

"So he's on duty one day, at the front door, right in front of the surveillance cameras, which Une spends all day staring at, who is his boss of course, when Mariemaia comes out in all her sixteen year old glory and tells Wufei she's completely in love with him, wants to marry him, begs him to take her away and tells him to take her virginity right there on the front steps."

"WHAT?" Duo just bet that brain was bleeding now. He even checked Heero's ears for blood, but no such luck.

"Wufei was suspended from duty pending an investigation, Wufei resigned and not even Trowa has heard from him since. Or he hadn't the last I heard."

Heero sat back in his chair and just stared at Duo as if maybe he had made up the story and it was all a bad joke. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Duo had hacked the Preventers video storage and downloaded the surveillance footage to see if for himself. He had to admit it was pretty out there, and she really had thrown herself at him. Started stripping off her clothes right there on the front lawn, and Wufei hadn't known what to do with himself. Poor guy even got a nose bleed, but Duo suspected it was from stress more than anything else.

"Trowa hasn't been with Quatre for a while," Heero muttered. "They had a falling out over some forest in South America and a species of Dolphin doing extinct because of a factory Quatre owned."

It was Duo's turn to shout 'what'? He stared at Heero, but this wasn't a bad joke either and he sat back down in his chair heavily and stared at the wall himself for a while. It was a fascinating wall. Completely bare. Like Marie's chest when she'd taken her shirt off…

No wonder she hadn't had a problem working in a topless bar.

"A dolphin, huh…"

"Quatre hired me for a while, I've been skipping between Relena and him for months. Finally had enough when Marie came to me begging for help."

Duo had to admit, stuck between Relena's meetings and Quatre's, boredom wouldn't have begun to describe the state of mind he would have been in. There would have been a massacre, of mostly terrible people because everyone knew politicians were terrible and business people weren't much better.

"I thought you said Trowa was here on business?"

"I didn't say for Quatre," Heero muttered, frowning again. He rubbed at his temples, as if his mind was aching. It probably was. Duo had to admit there had been quite a few revelations in this conversation, not least of all that Heero was apparently oblivious to all of them. Duo had thought it was just Heero evading him, but if Heero was evading everyone Duo couldn't take it as personally and that was just plain annoying.

"What else would Trowa be doing in the Valley?"

"Something you wouldn't approve of," Heero noted softly. Which narrowed it back down to trafficking.

"Why the hell would Trowa Barton become a trafficker?" The guy was weird, sure, but he'd never been into that sort of thing. They liked to kill guys into that sort of thing, not turn into them.

"If I had to guess," which Heero didn't like to do, "I would say he was looking for something important to him."

"You think he's in the Valley, looking for Wufei?" Duo paused to think about that but he couldn't picture it. The Valley was too specific a place, too dark and downright disgusting for anyone to deliberately start trading there. There was no way Wufei would choose to hide out here.

"I don't think Trowa's here," Heero corrected. "And I think we need to speak to someone at that diner." Because it was a very specifically labeled clue. He may as well have written 'for Heero and Duo' on it.

"What makes you think Trowa would go looking for Wufei? A few minutes ago you didn't even know they'd had a thing going."

Heero was quiet for a long time before he just shrugged and replied rather innocently.

"It's what I should have done."


	3. Chapter 3

3:

"Say what?"

Heero just sighed and collected the information they had to put back in the folder, sealing it and putting it back in the side pocket Duo had pulled it from. Duo was not letting him get away with it that easily.

"You think you should have become a trafficker to look for Wufei?" That made zero sense. Even less sense than anything else had made so far. He got up and followed Heero to the door.

"What? No!" Heero, thankfully, apparently agreed. "Forget it, it doesn't matter."

"The hell it doesn't. So you're not into Wufei?"

"NO! Where the hell do you get…No! Okay? I am not interested in Chang Wufei. Are you insane?"

"Meaning it's insane to be interested in Wufei?" Duo countered, liking this game a lot. He led the way back off the ship, careful to lose Heero in the tubes before finding him again in the old colony.

"What's wrong with Wufei then. Huh?"

"Nothing!" Heero hissed, but he was hunching a little, something he only did when he was on the defensive, which Duo found very interesting. "He's not my type," Heero finally muttered and Duo found himself left behind, standing in the middle of the street, stunned.

"That means you have a type!" Duo stammered as he caught up to Heero again, walking small circles around him and trying to get a response. "Wufei's pretty small and short, so opposite? Tall? Muscles? You would like muscles…only. Well, I guess the main problem is Wufei's male. Duh."

"No! That's not…Please, Duo, just…drop it already?"

Which meant what? Heero didn't like women? Heero was _gay?_ The hell he was dropping it! Duo let his mind run rampant with its own wild imaginings, featuring a very naked Heero Yuy, dirt and all, before reigning it in when Heero stopped dead in his tracks and glared at him.

"Stop imagining me."

"I would never!" He pretended to be wounded.

"STOP!" Real anger this time, frustration bubbling and that only happened when you hit really close to home. Duo stopped and shrugged, because if Heero wanted to have a personal meltdown because Duo was imagining him naked, then Heero could just have a damn meltdown. It wasn't like he was the only one imagining it. They were in the Valley, nothing was off limits.

"Has anyone ever told you you look damn good in grunge?"

"Duo!"

He just grinned, and Heero looked exasperated but still refused to divulge any more information. That was fine with Duo, because he liked this game and was more than happy to play it for days. However long they had, and really there was nothing to stop him following Heero back to Relena and playing it some more until he got answers. Heero must have sensed what he was thinking, because he groaned.

"Where's this diner, anyways?" Because he hadn't had time to scout the entire Valley, and Heero actually seemed to know where he was going, if the heavy sigh was anything to go by.

"I think I spotted it yesterday, down near a temple."

"A what now?"

"A temple," Heero ground out, glaring now, but Duo just ignored him.

"You know, it sounds a lot like you keep saying a temple. In the Valley."

He was just glaring now and Duo smirked. Sometimes it was too easy. Only when they arrived at Heero's destination, Heero hadn't got it that wrong. The diner itself was in an old part of what must have been one of the colonies many temples. It sure as hell didn't look like one now, but the red pillars out the front were unmistakable, and the gold chinese writing over the headboard looked like it might have said 'worship buddha here'. Once. Now it was spray painted over with fluorescent green writing that just said 'DINER'.

Personally, Duo thought they would have gotten more customers with 'BAR'. But he didn't own a diner, so who was he to tell the guy what to write out front in glow in the dark paint.

There was an old man sitting on the front step and when he looked in their direction his eyes glowed with a pale, silvery sheen in the darkness, and he grinned, showing countless rotted, yellow teeth.

"Haze," Duo mumbled and Heero just stared, clearly not used to seeing it yet. It was a common drug in the Valley, used mostly in human trafficking because it made its users so compliant. It also gave them personality shattering hallucinations and blindness, which became increasingly permanent with extended use, but flesh owners didn't care about that.

"Maze? The Valley is a maze!" The old man started singing and reached out toward them. Duo side stepped but the man managed to snag Heero's shirt and tugged it insistently and Heero the idiot Yuy let him, leaning in closer to listen.

"The Valley is a maze, the maze is in the haze, the hazey days are in the maze, the Valley is the maze!"

Heero tugged his shirt free, frowning at the thick black stain the old fingers left behind and Duo pushed him inside, humming the old man's tune just to piss the other man off.

The Diner was brighter than the dark outside, lit up with red and blue lights that made it look like a policeman's paradise but cast a gentler purple light over those eating inside. Duo scanned the room and spotted an empty booth toward the back and headed for that, surprised that Heero let him take the lead. It was a sign of just how out of place the Hero of the World had to be feeling and Duo let up on him. A little.

The seats were surprisingly comfortable, if you ignored the feeling of something sinking into your pants while you sat on them. Duo did, but it took effort. Heero squirmed, but did his best, glaring at Duo as if it were his fault the Valley were disgusting.

The menu did nothing to redeem the joint. Duo tried to touch it as little as possible, aware of stickiness coming off on his fingers ever so. He looked for the most edible deep fried thing he could see, reasoning that anything could die in hot oil.

He was grateful when the waitress that finally came to take their order had a shirt on, not sure how Heero might have handled the situation otherwise, since the girl didn't look much older than Mariemaia and had a line of track marks clearly showing up her arm. Maybe there just wasn't a whole lot to do for fun in the Valley? He doubted that excuse would sit well with Heero.

"What _is_ a deep fried g-snack? Exactly?" Heero seemed rightfully dubious.

"I think it's cheese? But who knows." It was definitely not cheese, but the less Heero knew about what it could possibly be, the better. Rule one, nothing was fresh. Rule two, most of it was definitely not edible. Anymore. It had been once, but...not by the time it got to the Valley.

The point was it had sounded dirty, which meant it probably got ordered a lot and since there wasn't a huge pile of bodies at the door, it was likely not going to kill them immediately. He hoped.

"So how do we get to speak to the owner?"

Heero was looking around lazily, as if it were random, but Duo knew better. He couldn't follow Heero's gaze without it looking suspicious but he memorized the directions Heero looked in and every now and then managed to take a peek. The door, which wasn't surprising. The window, which made sense, too. But he kept coming back to a booth by the window, and Duo spotted a picture there of a man with the waitress.

It took a lot more looks to realise the man was Trowa Barton. He'd grown his hair out so it all hang one length around his shoulders, in a scraggly mess, still flopping in his face but...hot. Duo could admit it. Dressed for the Valley and covered in that much filth, with that damn evil glare of his, Trowa looked damn fine.

He also looked dangerous. They were both quiet while they waited for their meals to arrive and then it was on.

Duo put on his most charming smile and asked when her break was and if she would like to share his g-snack, which had fries, which was a start. She didn't hesitate to take a seat either, which told him it was definitely edible.

"You're new here, right? I ain't seen yas round. Ever." He was surprised she saw anything, but it looked like she was just hooked on heroin, and in their current environment he could almost respect her sticking to the classics.

"Not too new. More like a returning hand." He had been there before, after all. It had just been a while, and he hadn't been stupid enough to stay the last time, or come back after that.

"Ah. You never really find your way out," she nodded her head in understanding and munched on a fry.

"Too true."

"Dragged your friend into your mess this time, too...that sucks." She was looking at Heero, and Duo was just grateful the guy only shrugged instead of protesting. It wasn't that far from the truth, only it was usually Heero dragging Duo into his mess, and Duo intended to remind him of the fact later. Their current position the perfect point in case.

"So you got a man, then?" Because he didn't think people beat around the bush that much here.

"A man?" She laughed at that, finding it genuinely amusing. "Honey, any girl with just one man ain't worth shit in this hole." Of course. He forced a smile and made a mental note to change Mariemaia's rope bonds to steel as soon as they got back.

"Any around at the moment?"

"Not that would complain about me having another." She was leering now, and it was not attractive at all. Her breath stank and she had a hole in her septum where a dribble of whatever they were drinking trickled. It was the best anti-drugs advertisement Duo could imagine. Well, maybe the second best, but young girls should definitely pay attention. He wished he could take her photo and shove it in Mariemaia's face. And Barton's, since it was his fault the poor girl was here at all.

"What about him?" Duo pretended to notice the picture for the first time and it made the girl frown, looking to see what he was staring at.

"He's definitely not here," she laughed when she realised what Duo was talking about. "And if he were, he sure as hell wouldn't be in my bed."

"That's good...he looks kinda..." Duo shrugged and tried his best to look timid.

"Yeah. Bloom has that effect on people," she muttered, and then she followed it up with three words Duo had been certain he would never hear in his life. "He's my dealer."

At least Heero wasn't as blindsided by the admission, taking over from Duo excitedly, looking and sounding nothing at all like the man Duo had thought he knew.

"Can you get me some?" Who was this guy, and where had Heero gone? He even sounded like a desperate junkie.

She was eyeing Heero dubiously now but there was something in Heero's face that was genuine; that desperately needed a fix. Duo had no idea how he was doing that, but the girl bought it hook line and sinker.

"I could arrange a drop," she agreed. "Later today? Say sixer? The old clocktower down the eighth docking strip?"

"I'll be there. You're a lifesaver."

They continued to groom their friendship until the cook called from out back, demanding she get back to work and she rolled her eyes and left Duo with a sloppy kiss on the cheek that he would have given anything to have been in a position to wipe off.

"Well. Aren't you just the new addict."

"Shut up, it's a step closer to Barton."

"Oh, you mean Drug Trafficker Bloom?" Because Duo wasn't letting go of that anytime soon. What the hell was Barton up to that he had gotten into that? And by the photo it didn't look like a recent thing. Duo tried to remember the last time he'd seen the man, and realised it was at least two years. Even Heero had known he wasn't with Quatre. So he could assume Trowa had been trafficking at least that long?

"Just for the record, when this is all sorted out, I'm killing him. Okay?"

"He'll have his reasons, Duo," Heero whispered and it was only the note of sadness behind the words that stilled Duo's comeback. He looked at Heero and wondered what the weight on those shoulders was, and for once didn't feel like pushing. Because if Heero Yuy was weighed down, it was a problem he didn't want to have to deal with.

They checked out a few of the other places receipts had come from and a pattern soon became clear. Drug use was prevalent in each location, and in each they found some small token of Trowa's presence, and someone willing to offer them a deal. They set up a second drop as a back up to the first, but no one seemed willing to do a deal tomorrow and that became the focus of their attention on the walk back to Heero's ship.

"There's a Sale on tomorrow," Duo muttered. "Even the drug traffickers won't deal on a Sale day." It was the custom Duo hated most. He'd seen countless homeless children disappear from colony streets over the years and had no doubts where they ended up, but the government tried and failed to police the issue and after a while Duo had turned a blind eye, just like everyone else.

"That's because they're supplying drugs to the market," Heero pointed out softly and Duo wondered why he hadn't considered that himself. There was no need to make a deal when some rich trafficker was willing to pay double your price to have you for the day, administering to his wares.

"Makes sense," Duo admitted softly and Heero didn't even try to rub it in. He was quiet as they went back to the ship, letting Duo slip away and meeting him again in the cargo bay, sealing the doors shut and not even bothering to ask how Duo kept getting on board. It was a sign of trust and Duo felt something very small in his chest unwind.

"When you release me, I'm going to chew your balls off."

They both just stared at her. Heero shook his head and left the room and Duo did a lap to see that she had tried, very hard, to get free, and only succeeded in tightening the bonds. He slowly went about freeing her.

"Where exactly did you get your foul mouth?"

"Trowa." Simple as that. Duo paused, fingers stroking the rope as a thought occurred to him.

"You've been under house arrest, all this time. Bet you have like a trillion facebook friends."

"Don't be stupid, no one uses that old school shit anymore." But she was using something.

"So what do you use, that Trowa was able to find you?"

She silenced at that, and Duo just sighed because she was just a little girl after all. She'd likely had a profile somewhere, nicely hidden so the government red tape didn't find it, but not so hidden that someone important couldn't contact her if need be.

"It was just a chat address," she confessed softly and Heero swore from the doorway. "Wufei made it, so we could still talk."

"You were still in contact with Wufei?" Heero came and sat opposite her, pulling up the net on the computer screens and waiting for her to put in the address, but she didn't. Even once Duo had freed her hands, she sat on them and shook her head.

"We were friends. As soon as I realised what I'd done, that he'd lost his job for it...I felt terrible. I apologised but it was too late, the damage was done. I sent him so many emails and eventually he just sent a link."

"Type in the address," Heero ordered and she shook her head vehemently.

"He stopped writing. Years ago. I haven't heard from him since I was seventeen!" That didn't help since Duo had no idea how old she was now. Legal, at least, but that didn't give him a proper timeline and he just hoped Heero had a better idea. Knew he did.

"When did Barton start?"

"A few months ago? I guess...maybe, five?" She looked small suddenly and Duo sighed, because they were picking on the wrong person. He still pointed at the keyboard stubbornly and she relented, typing in the address.

It was just a simple chat, but it stored messages until you specifically told it to delete them. The screen was black with one message left in the top corner. A date, a time, an amount and a location. Tomorrow, midnight, a billion in the Valley.

"A deal?"

Heero and Duo looked at each other because there was only one kind of deal going down tomorrow, and if Trowa wasn't going to be there like the waitress had suggested, that only left one option. And it made them both sick.

"Wufei's being sold?" Duo asked, mostly for clarification, as if hearing it out loud would make it seem more real.

Mariemaia nodded, slumping in her chair and pulling her knees up to hug.

"Why didn't you just say that to begin with?" Because that had to have been easier than the crazy shit about Heero kidnapping her! And was strangely more believable. But she was looking at him with scorn in her eyes and he knew he was missing something.

"This isn't the first time," Heero noted softly. "Is it?"

She was shaking her head and Heero sat heavily in the other chair, staring at the chat screen as if it might magically change. When it didn't, he reached out and deleted the message, so it's sender would know it had been received.

"You didn't tell me to bring a billion dollars, Marie. I don't have that kind of money."

But she was looking at Duo and he had to laugh, because of all the reasons he might have thought he had been brought in, to pay the bill had definitely not been on the list. Even Heero was looking at him, stumped.

"You have that kind of money?"

"He's one of the richest guys in the universe," Mariemaia pointed out. "He doesn't spend anything, at least...that's what Trowa said."

"What is Trowa doing looking at my bank accounts?" Duo fumed, pacing the length of the ship's corridor, down into the cargo bay and back again, still trying to process the fact they were there to buy Wufei. That he was going to have to put money into human trafficking, if he was going to get Wufei back.

He couldn't decide if it was worth it; couldn't convince himself he should care when no one else ever seemed to. Only it was Wufei.

"Trowa was Quatre's accountant for a while. We all gave Quatre access to our accounts after the war," Heero reminded him and Duo just scowled because he hadn't thought Quatre was still being a sticky beak about it, and if he had known he would have worked harder at beating Quatre's numbers. At least he'd been giving him a good run for his money.

"How did you get all that money, anyways?"

"Scrap collection, computer systems, system upgrades, a few choice ship patents that Howard likes to use repeatedly..." He shrugged, not even sure anymore where a lot of it came from, just aware that after the first few million it had gotten out of control and he couldn't even spend all the interest in a month, let alone touch the savings and after that it hadn't seemed worth the effort. The numbers just kept going up.

"I need to change my line of work," Heero muttered and Duo laughed, only stopping when Heero sat there staring at him for a minute too long.

"What?"

"Nothing," Heero shrugged. "I just...haven't heard you laugh in a long time. I mean, for real." He had a fake laugh now? And this one wasn't it? This was a real laugh? What did that even mean? Duo scowled and Heero just smiled and looked away, moving from his chair so Duo could take a seat.

"Organise the funds."

"I'm not paying." Because there had to be another way to get Wufei, that didn't involve contributing his hard earned cash to traffickers.

Hands came down hard on his shoulders and Heero's face was suddenly close enough that Duo could feel his breath beating in angry puffs against his nose. Heero's eyes were just as rich a blue as he remembered, and full of just as much fire, and his grip was as strong as ever, pinning Duo to the seat, using his weight to hold him there.

"Organise the funds. Now."

He wanted to argue, but there was something in Heero's hands that stopped him, not physically but some other way Duo couldn't define. He was still a long time before he turned the chair and logged in to his bank, arranging a transfer to a disposable card he had, pleased he'd thought to bring one because once everything was done he did not want his name attached to any of this.

Had Howard known this was why he was coming? Had he really forced Duo to come so that he could pay for human trafficking? And what was with that price? Wufei was an expensive shit! And why was Heero adamant they do it this way, when they could just break Wufei out and be done with it?

He finished the transfer and held the card out to Heero, who just shook his head and motioned for Duo to hang onto it.

"I wouldn't know the first thing about...buying."

"And I would?" But he did. He knew more than he cared to admit and he stashed the card in his pocket and crossed his arms, glaring at Mariemaia. She knew things, and it pissed him off that she wasn't sharing unless Heero did the glaring.

"What happened to you?" It was Mariemaia who asked, and Duo just stared at her, not sure what she meant. Or wanting to pretend he didn't know.

"You used to be their friend."

Duo wanted to argue but when he looked at Heero, the man was just looking back, curious to know the answer. As if it hadn't all been his fault to begin with. As if Duo had been the one to ignore, to abandon him in the hospital without so much as a 'get well soon'. Quatre had sent him an email every now and then, but that had been it.

"We weren't friends," he pointed out coldly and Heero's eyes widened just a little. Just enough for Duo to know he had hit a nerve. "Friends don't abandon each other."

"Says the man who wasn't willing to buy his friend out of slavery a minute ago," Mariemaia muttered darkly.

"I don't need to buy him, if he's not my friend, now do I?" But he was covering for the hurt and denying that he wanted to pay whatever it cost to get Wufei back was only hurting him more. He wanted to argue, wanted to scream in both their faces, but most of all he wanted them to tell him he was wrong. That it was a misunderstanding. That there was some excuse that would make up for everything.

They just stared at him and Duo kicked the wall, hard enough that his ankle wrenched in pain that he ignored.

"I'll meet you at the clocktower," he promised Heero, and left. Not out the cargo doors because he wasn't that stupid, but left all the same.

He stormed his way through the colony, taking every dark alley he could find, which was a lot, and decking anyone who got in his way.

Stupid fucking Heero Yuy. They'd almost been at an understanding. Almost had an agreement. Heero had even kissed him a few times, letting him know just what it would be like to have more than he had bargained for, and Duo had wanted it. Had made it very clear that he wanted it.

Heero had even agreed to ditch the gundams. Then Marie-fucking-Maia Kushrenada had come along and everything went to hell. They'd had to fight again, and somehow in amongst it all Heero got it in his head that Duo might get hurt, as if Duo cared, and he'd taken him out of the fight.

Duo had come to in hospital, reached out to find nothing but air. No flowers, no note, and Heero on the television at Relena's side, being heralded as the Hero of the World. And he'd never heard from him again, until Howard gave him that folder that just happened to say Heero Yuy had kidnapped Kushrenada. Quite the hello, that one.

And now, Duo was the one who had abandoned him? Or them? A few stray emails from Quatre via Howard didn't constitute a friendship!

And yet the shock he'd felt when he realised why they were there was real. The need to act was still adrenaline pumping through his veins. His abhorrence for Trowa's actions wasn't just the actions themselves, but that it was Trowa. His...friend. Friend? There had to be a better word, but he wasn't just an acquaintance.

His fists were bloody when he returned to the _Reincarnation_, but he left them that way. People didn't make a habit of showering in the Valley, and a little blood didn't hurt his reputation at all. He went to his room and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling for a long time. He felt pretty fucking stupid when Heero came and sat on the edge, not looking at him, but very much there.

He hadn't heard him come in, and none of the proximity alarms had gone off. How had he done that?

"I'm sorry."

"Excuse me?" Was that seriously an apology? From Heero Yuy?

"I'm sorry, Duo. I should have come. I should have visited you, I should have called, or written, or hell even sent some flowers."

"I'll allergic."

"I know," Heero laughed, shaking his head and that weight was back in full as he turned to look properly at Duo where he was propped up on his elbows.

"I wanted Us. So badly. When the Incident happened, I couldn't think straight, I just knew I had to make you safe..."

"Breaking my ribs, puncturing my lung, dumping me in a civi hospital...is safe?" It made them both laugh, because civi hospitals were anything but safe, but that was not the point. And Heero was shaking his head.

"Afterward, Relena needed a face. We needed Quatre, to rebuild, and Trowa was willing to be the guarddog to keep him there. I...didn't trust Wufei."

And he didn't want to put Duo in the middle of it all. Wanted to keep him safe, and so went himself instead. Duo just stared for a long time, feeling the old ache of it and wondering if it would ever go away. Heero was so stupid, but he'd known that all along. The really stupid thing had been not seeing it all for what it was.

"You didn't call..." He'd had years to say something, anything at all, but there had never been a word.

"I rang Howard," Heero admitted softly. "He always said you were doing okay."

"That dirty old scumbag!" Duo ground out, wondering how often Heero had rung and Howard hadn't said a word. But he'd probably thought it none of his business, and Duo recalled at some point giving orders that if anyone did call for him he wasn't there. Most likely he really hadn't been there, had been off on some job or other.

Heero was smiling, but it was a sad thing that didn't reach his eyes. An old thing.

"I don't expect what we had before." Didn't expect it, but that didn't mean he didn't want it and something shifted again in Duo's gut. "But...we are friends, Duo. We will always be friends. Never say...never think otherwise."

And just like that he was gone again, leaving Duo to contemplate his ceiling and the mistakes that maybe, just maybe hadn't been Heero's after all. Maybe.


	4. Chapter 4

4:

The problem, really, was that Heero never looked as stupid as he was. Duo stalked the Reincarnation, randomly punching a wall whenever his frustration decided it needed a better outlet than walking and let his mind churn over events.

Several years worth. And that was what really pissed him off. It wasn't like Heero had kept his distance until things had blown over. His Hero of the World bullshit storm had blown over after the first two, but Heero still hadn't come around.

But Duo hadn't either. He'd made sure the distance between them was huge, and had done nothing to encourage the man to bridge that gap. Hell, if he was telling the truth, Heero had even contacted Howard, seeking out...

Him. Anything he could have of him, even if it was just an old man's reassurances down a phone line. Duo kicked the wall again, felt his ankle wrench again and cursed, loudly and for a long time because it had hurt and because he had needed the outlet.

When he finally sat down and took a look at it, his ankle was dark and swollen but it was all surface damage. And he was completely blaming Heero for all of it.

He sat until his alarm told him it was time to go, and then all he wanted to do was sit some more. Forcing himself up, he checked he had enough weapons hidden on him to get through anything that was likely to go on, then slunk out of his ship, sealing it tight and checking the outer hull for any sign of how Heero had gotten onboard without the sensors telling him.

There was no sign. Duo had a sneaking suspicion the code he had originally sent to Heero, to see if he could crack it, that had come back whole and unbroken had actually come back broken but repaired.

"Sneaky fucking bastard." But there was a huge amount of respect behind the words, and a gnawing beast of doubt. Heero had made sure he could still get inside Duo's defenses, and had let Duo believe it was impossible.

The clocktower was hard to find, and Duo was glad he'd left early. The dark, muggy atmosphere made him suspect there was a broken down air filter that had needed attention for some time, but it hadn't spread beyond this zone yet, so no one had bothered to look for it. It made the air thick, and it tasted foul. He wished he'd brought a scarf.

He did a few laps of the surrounding area first, noting places he would have hidden back up, or placed a sniper, but they were empty and others were full, so he gave up trying to fathom what drug traffickers thought and trusted Heero not to be dumb enough to get them both shot.

He found Heero doing much the same thing, resting casually against a broken wall, hands in his pockets but eyes glazed, as if seeing nothing when Duo knew he was looking at everything. He did a damn good impersonation of a drug addict, truth be told.

For a minute, Duo was lost for something to say. He was grateful the situation didn't really require him to say anything, and Heero for the moment seemed content with silence.

"So what're we buying?"

"Haze."

Duo's eyes narrowed and then he looked away, because it was a good choice. They were going to need it, after all. It still grated that he was going to add yet again to a trade he despised. At least Heero was apparently paying for this one.

"I didn't think they paid you that much to bodyguard Relena?" Hadn't that been what Heero was griping about? They could never have paid Duo enough to sit though one of their political get togethers, but he didn't think Heero had been in it for the money. Or hadn't thought...now he wasn't so sure. Why the hell had Heero stuck with it so long? Surely he could have trained a replacement long ago? Had trained them if footage Duo had seen over the last year or two was anything to go by.

"They don't," Heero admitted but he was grinning now. "I have a few patents of my own."

He looked so damnably charming, even a little wicked. Like he enjoyed having secrets, and Duo knew it was true. Heero liked holding the cards, knowing he had the upper hand. It was why they clashed so often during the war; Duo never gave up his cards without a fight to the death.

"You really haven't changed that much, you know?" He had. He'd gotten a little taller, though he was still shorter than Duo and judging by photos had to be a head or two shorter than Quatre and Trowa who were on hormones or something because they grew out of puberty literally. European genes for the win. And he'd gotten even more good looking, keeping his muscle mass but staying lean and growing into his bones. He had the most amazing jaw...

"You have," Heero observed, and the way his eyes raked over Duo's body left no doubt as to what he was talking about. Duo just blinked, not having expected it at all. He had changed, in so many ways, but he hadn't expected Heero to notice, because he hadn't thought Heero knew him that well to begin with. He did have to admit the physical changes were noticeable. He wasn't a waif anymore, could give as good as he got. Could take Heero down, if he had to, and right then he really, really wanted to. He just wasn't sure where to.

"You really think Wufei'll be on Haze?" There were so many other options, but it was true that Haze was the Valley's baby.

"I don't see any other way they took him in the first place," Heero muttered and Duo had to agree. The wrong place at the wrong time wasn't enough to take a gundam pilot out. The wrong place, wrong time and a near death dosing of Haze and Wufei could have been singing baa baa black sheep to an alley cat and been none the wiser.

"Where's Marie?"

"At work..." Heero admitted softly and Duo gaped.

"The fuck?" Because of all the people to suddenly condone topless waitressing, Heero was the last on Duo's expectation list.

"We need the cover."

"So you do have a plan."

"What?" Heero was scowling, and Duo just licked his lips, please with himself, and shrugged.

"I was starting to wonder." He had, after all, brought Mariemaia here with absolutely no clue why. Who did that anyway? The girl had already destroyed one man's career, and considering his current predicament quite likely his life, and now Heero had quite possibly destroyed his. And apparently didn't care! Duo was seriously questioning everyone else's sanity. The part where they had all come to Mettle Valley wasn't helping change his mind.

"I have a plan," Heero ground out his confirmation, and Duo could tell he was pissed that Duo had doubted him. Which was weird, since it meant Heero cared what Duo thought. Unfortunately, it just made the niggling something in Duo's gut that much more bold and Duo swallowed through a suddenly dry throat and had to look away.

"Plans are good," he managed to grumble. Plans were really good, especially when you knew what they were. He would have given a lot to know what the plan was for getting out of their drug deal alive, but he didn't want to have to ask and Heero was smirking again, damnit!

"I have all kinds of plans," he admitted softly and it had not in any way been what Duo had expected him to say. In all honesty, he hadn't expected the man to say anything. Changes, indeed.

Heero shoved off the wall and Duo fell into step just behind him, to the side, like old times. Only he kept watching for that strategically aimed fist this time, because he'd grown rather fond of his lungs and didn't appreciate his ribs being forced to use them as a pin cushion, thank you very much. Heero needed to learn how to pull out of a punch.

The dealer was not what Duo had been expecting. For one, he didn't look like he used. At all. He also had wartime eyes, that looked all over the damn place for something amiss and ran them up and down several times before stepping into a familiar lazy stance. He didn't trust them at all, but wasn't willing to lose a deal quite yet.

"I don't want any trouble," Heero noted softly, noticing the same things and the man just watched them. Cold. Duo didn't like him at all. He was stronger than he'd expected and while he didn't doubt Heero could take the man on without his help, Duo wondered who was hiding out nearby to back the guy up because no one was stupid enough to come out here alone.

Drug traffickers had gotten a lot smarter than Duo recalled from his youth. Worse, they didn't appear to use their own wares.

"What are you lookin to buy?" It was interesting that they sold more than one thing. Most just specialized in something and had a few bits of homemade crap on the side. But he legitimately carried a lot, judging by the way his jacket bulged strangely over his chest. Duo wondered how much merchandise would end up inside the man's body if he shot him right now, point blank, and just how badly it would sting?

"A half pound of haze."

Even Duo's eyes went wide at that, because that was an insane amount. But the man just relaxed, settled into a familiar routine and laughed, nodded a little. Because now it made sense.

"Buying in the Sale, huh. Guess you'll be needing the good stuff then." Not the stuff used for recreation, but the stuff used to keep your merchandise pliable. Duo wanted to rip the man's throat out and deep fry it at the Diner, and kept reminding himself in a silent litany at the back of his mind that he was going to need the drugs. Supposedly.

Frankly, he thought Wufei should go fucking cold turkey and be done with it. Only, that could kill and he didn't really want the guy dead he just really, really hated traffickers.

The man held out his packet and Heero held out his card. A second man came out of the darkness and Duo had to admit he was good. Not even Heero seemed to have known he was there, though they should have from the stench alone. They scanned the card, the man nodded and the dealer dropped the stash and started backing away, hands raised to show he meant no harm.

It was one of the hardest things Duo had ever done to just stand there and let them walk away. He glared at Heero, because this had to be his fault somehow, and waited until they were truly gone before pointing. Heero picked up the package and shoved it inside the pockets of his pants and Duo turned away, unable to look at him while he knew it was there.

There were eyes on them and they took a good two hours to lose them before it was safe to go back to Heero's ship. Duo found himself staring at it and frowning and went over to talk to Manfred for a while, extolling on their drinking bout and assuring the man there would be a rematch. He didn't go to meet Heero again until he had calmed down enough that he was almost certain he wouldn't slog the poor guy. He was, after all, just trying to get the job done.

"I'm sorry."

"You know, you've been saying that a lot lately," Duo mumbled, taking the copilots chair and spinning it lazily, trying not to stare too hard at Heero's face each time it came around in his vision. Heero just shrugged. There was no sign of the Haze, for which Duo was grateful.

"So this plan of yours?"

"You have a gunrun tomorrow, right?"

He did, but he was almost sure he hadn't told Heero that and it made him frown but he nodded. Heero had his ways, and Duo had his. The gunrun would establish his cover, but he hadn't actually thought to need it. Had assumed he would be out in time to not have to. Still, using it wouldn't hurt either.

"Think you can wait to leave until after midnight?"

"You want me to smuggle Wufei out of Mettle Valley, disguised as a gun run?"

"No, I want you to do the gun run, and get Wufei clean off Haze during the trip."

"Are you out of your fucking mind? While you what? Sit pretty and wait tables topless?"

"That's Marie's job," Heero deadpanned and Duo just gaped at him, almost certain someone had cloned Heero Yuy and sent him the dumb ass clone to work with. He forced himself to calm down, because there had to be a reason for Heero coming up with the dumbest plan in the history of plans.

"You're not leaving?"

"Neither are you." That was debatable, but Duo let him believe it for the moment. He might yet run off with the guns and Wufei, just to spite the man and piss off Trowa.

"Get Wufei clean, bring him back here and complete your run. The cover's good. It's smart," Heero admitted softly and there was a hint of pride in it that Duo didn't understand at all. None of it had been Heero's idea, and Heero had no reason whatsoever to be proud of Duo's individual actions. But it had been smart.

"You want to find Trowa," Duo realised softly.

"The waitress was pretty sure he wasn't here." A little too sure.

"She was also pretty damn sure he was bad news," Duo ground out, still extremely unimpressed that Trowa had taken up his current occupation.

"You don't find it odd our dealer offered us a choice of wares?"

"Well, we never told the waitress what we wanted to buy..." But he had to admit she should have just assumed it was what she was on, which was not what they bought, so why'd the dealer have that much Haze on him? Why not just offer some Heroin and be done with it? Haze paid better though, especially the good stuff, and Heero hadn't been a user so maybe she was just a hell of a lot smarter than she looked, since she didn't look intelligent at all, and had assumed they would be wanting Haze for a pet?

"You thought it was odd too," Heero confirmed, and his grin went straight to Duo's groin. That was downright unfair.

"Dealers don't usually mix merchandise," Duo admitted. "Especially Haze dealers." They had no need to; were the kingpins of their trade.

"My guess is Trowa didn't know where to look. Traded in one drug after another looking for clues until he found one, and then couldn't pull the plug on the others."

"What made him think drug trafficking would find Wufei in the first place?" Because it sure as hell wouldn't have been Duo's first, second or hundredth point of call.

But Heero didn't know either and just shrugged and Duo sat back, considering it. If there'd been even the slightest hint Wufei was mixed up in something, and Trowa found evidence, it was just like the man to go and become the lord of it to trace it back to Wufei. He was good at infiltration...a little too good, in Duo's opinion. It was damn near impossible to know when he was pretending or when he genuinely meant something. Sometimes he was sure Trowa actually fooled himself.

He tried to remember what Trowa had been like, during the crazy threesome time when Quatre had still called him, worried because Trowa hadn't come home but too chicken shit to call Wufei and make sure that was where he was. Trowa had been very unlike himself. Crazed, even. He loved Quatre, that was damn obvious, but it was a calm, friendly kind of soul deep adoration. When Trowa looked at Wufei it was fire and rage and need, even Duo had seen that. Something primal in both of them. And when Wufei disappeared, he'd snuck into Quatre's mansion to see the mess that had made the news after someone 'broke into Quatre's Winners house but stole nothing' and knew what had really happened. You had to give it to the guy, Trowa had a temper in there somewhere. But that had been the last he'd seen of it. After that, Trowa followed Quatre around same as always, until apparently he'd had to stand up for an extinct dolphin's completely unnecessary rights.

"That dolphin story makes no sense at all."

"What?" Heero looked completely confused and Duo supposed it had come out of left field, but they were discussing Trowa so it wasn't as though it was entirely off topic. The man needed to learn to keep up, seriously.

"Trowa up and leaving Quatre because a factory he owned killed off some random species of dolphin. Sure the guy loves animals, but he loves Quatre too and Quatre likely sold off the entire company responsible as soon as he figured out what pissed Trowa off. It's not a good enough reason for Trowa to just up and...vamoose."

"Is that even a word?"

"I don't know, don't care, I like it." Duo wiggled his fingers at Heero and said it again. "Vamoose." Heero didn't look impressed.

"You think it was a cover, to get Trowa out of the picture?"

"So he could find Wufei," Duo agreed. "Quatre's not stupid, and I saw that house."

"What do you mean?" He was frowning again, and Duo suspected he was a little addicted to making Heero look like that. He liked having the upper hand. A lot.

"I've got pictures, back home. I'll show you sometime if you like but..." He shrugged, shaking his head, still not really sure how a single man had managed to do that to a King size bed. He had suspected a laser weapon had been involved, but there were no burn marks. Duo had picked splinters out of his clothes for days.

"Trowa trashed Quatre's house? That break in?"

Duo was just nodding, waving his hand because he'd moved on from that subject. Heero needed to keep up!

"Do you think he's dangerous?"

Duo just stared at the man, because really?

"Heero, he's a fuckin Gundam pilot, of course he's dangerous! Do I think he's crazy? Aren't we all! Do I think he's capable of anything? He gives me the creeps, of course he is! Do I think he could become a drug trafficker? Hells yes I do, and he'd be freakishly good at it, the man is a nutjob! Do I think he would ever hurt Quatre? Not in a million fucking years. Do I think he'd do just about anything to have Wufei again? No shit man!" Honestly, were they really having this conversation?

"How far?"

"Huh?" It was Duo's turn to frown and he clung tighter to the arms of the chair just in case Heero was contemplating literally throwing him off his ship. The guy could at least let him put on a suit first; he didn't fancy being tossed out into open space. Or at least toss him from the half of the ship under airlock.

"How far do you think he would go, to have Wufei back?"

"Heero." Duo sat forward, satisfied for the moment he was safe from the vacuum of space. "The man had Mariemaia convince you to kidnap her and bring her to Mettle Valley." How many times was he going to have to repeat this?

"...Hn."

"You really are stupid, you know that right?" Because no way in hell would Duo have fallen for that. But Heero was just looking at him, frustrated by something and Duo found himself sitting back in his chair and staring right back at him. It was damn hard to read Heero sometimes, especially when he actually showed some kind of emotion. No one expected Heero to show emotions, it was just plain weird.

"Maybe we all are, but Trowa's not."

Duo didn't see how getting yourself involved in the drug trade to find your boyfriend was intelligent. At all. But if Heero wanted to think it was, he wasn't going to bust his bubble. Had to be a damn nice bubble for that shit to fly.

"We can't leave until we find him. He didn't need both of us here, to get Wufei."

"I don't get why he didn't do it himself!" Duo scoffed and then paused, because that was the whole point, wasn't it? Heero was nodding, pleased Duo had finally caught on and it made him frown, because Heero wasn't supposed to get something before him. But why hadn't Trowa just made sure he was in the Valley when the Sale was on? Why involve Mariemaia at all? Why bring two Gundam Pilots in to help?

Unless you were in so far over your head you needed an army to get you out. Brilliant.

"Well, this just got fun," Duo muttered. He had no idea what Trowa expected them to do. Leaving a picture of himself on the wall with a drug whore wasn't exactly the greatest clue in the world.

"We need to check out the other clues from that folder," Heero said softly. "I still remember most of the places."

"Wait, so your grande plan is to buy Wufei, get him drug free, and bring him right on back to the Valley to look for Trowa?" Duo still didn't see how that was a good plan. In fact, it sounded downright stupid and he was pretty sure Wufei would have agreed with him.

"We need your position as a runner. It gives us an excuse to come and go."

"Oh great! So I can become a local in Mettle Valley! My dream come true!" The man was out of his damn mind. Did he know the average life expectancy of a person in the Valley was fifteen years shorter than someone on Earth? And that was just because of the air they breathed, it didn't include the years they hacked off that number because of knifings, infections, shootings, drugs or just generally horrific hygiene. There was a reason people avoided the Valley at all costs; you only came here if you knew you were going to die anyway.

"Didn't you just say this was fun?" Heero countered and Duo scowled at him because he was not supposed to use his words against him. But he had to admit he was enjoying himself. Just like he suspected Howard had known he would.

Heero was moving and Duo forced himself to follow, slipping out his now usual exit and meeting Heero near the entrance to the docking feed. He had to admit, Mettle Valley was a fascinating piece of engineering brilliance. That anyone had salvaged even a tiny piece of L5 was miracle enough, let alone that they managed to get air and gravity functioning. But to then craft the airlocks on the hull, and attach the docking feeds...and the sheer scale of said feeds, to allow the volume of customers the Valley could accommodate. Someone had had a very, very big ego, or had completely lost their mind. Lost everything, most likely, and had nothing better to do with their time than build a criminal island in space.

If it hadn't been so vile, Duo thought he might have actually liked the place.

They made their way to a grimy side street, where Heero had somehow managed to find a whorehouse. Duo looked him up and down, raised a brow and made it very clear he was jumping to all sorts of conclusions. Heero tried to look affronted but gave it up as a lost cause and let Duo lead them inside.

Seedy didn't begin to cover it. There was a desk with a small, haggard looking woman at it, eyes shining bright in the darkness, shrouded in red light from the single bulb above her head. A hulking, stupid looking man stood behind her, arms crossed in an attempt to look menacing. Behind them was a long corridor, sheets hanging as doorways every could of metres. Moans and grunts were clearly audible and occasionally a sheet was kicked, revealing a hint of flesh before it disappeared from sight again.

Slaves, Duo reminded himself. Each one of the whores here was bought, sold and kept, and probably didn't even know it. But Heero looked so thoroughly disgusted it was up to Duo to act and he forced himself to step up to the desk, and then just stared harder, waving his hand in the old woman's face.

She was completely blind.

"Hundred," she spat out, and a tooth fell out with the words, rotted by haze. Duo refused to puke and flashed his card over the scanner, watching the light turn green in disgust. The bodyguard stepped aside and Duo knew immediately he could burn the girl he chose alive and the man would do nothing to stop him. He was just there to make sure the customer paid.

"Each!" She spat at them when Heero made to follow and Heero hurriedly scanned his card as well.

He walked slowly, taking his time to peek in and scan as best he could as they passed each makeshift room. He wanted to storm into each and wring the necks of the bastards using the whores, but it wouldn't solve anything. The whores wouldn't even care, not until the withdrawals kicked in and with them as far gone as they were they likely wouldn't live to see the other side of it.

Heero, at least, seemed suitably shellshocked and Duo just hoped it would finally drive home why he hated them all so much. Why he refused to pay. Why he didn't want to contribute. He'd paid the entry fee only because it meant some poor creature would have a rest, for however long they chose to stay.

It was Heero that spotted it, maybe because he was staring so hard. He slipped into a room and pulled the curtain closed behind Duo.

The girl on the ground didn't look any older than Mariemaia, and had probably been a lot prettier. Or maybe not, since she'd likely been sold into it all pretty young. Her eyes were glazed and she reached for them blindly, skin pocked with disease and burn marks, scars rampant where sadistic men had taken their fill. Half her face had been destroyed by acid. There was a hole in her cheek clear through to her mouth.

Heero surprised him by throwing up in the corner while Duo stared at the harlequin mask on the wall. He stepped up closer, recognising the unmistakable purple star over the eye and shivering, feeling like it was watching him but when he pulled it off the wall there was no camera inside.

Recovering, Heero came to inspect it as well but it was just the mask and there was nothing else on the walls. A gift? Had Trowa really been here or was it just a coincidence?

"You like it?" The voice was ragged, hoarse with disuse. She seemed to be struggling to remember how to talk at all. Duo was impressed she even remembered she could. He eyed her more carefully, moving over to kneel on the mattress beside her, ignoring the wetness that sank in against his knees, too aware of what it was.

"Was it a gift?"

"No..." But she was frowning and the struggle was visible in every part of her body as she shuddered with the need for more drugs, and the desire to overcome the need. To listen to them.

"Not...not a gift," she managed to get out, but she was sweating with the effort and Duo looked up, surprised when Heero picked up the torn blanket from the corner and carefully wrapped her in it. He looked cold, which meant he was hurting and couldn't afford to let it show.

"A ...promise."

That had both their attention and they frowned down at her. Duo rubbed the sweat from her brow but only succeeded in replacing it with dirt and blood. She didn't seem to care, looking in his direction gratefully and pulling the blanket tighter about herself.

"What did he promise you?"

"No!" Frustration. Duo ached to see her trying so hard and clenched his fists in the soiled sheets to keep from letting it out.

"I promise." Vehemence. Defiance. Somewhere underneath it all, she was still whatever girl she had once been. Somewhere she knew who she was, and worse...what she was now.

"I'm here," Duo whispered, close to her ear, trying to soothe, trying to help even as he pulled out his knife from his boot.

"Sahar."

Duo looked up at Heero and then back at the whore, but she looked calmer and he knew her message was delivered, whatever the hell it meant. She smiled and her eyes slid shut as her arms once again reached for him, the slip of a moment gone. Duo rammed the knife between her ribs and up into her heart without hesitation, bowed his head and prayed.

This wasn't what life was for. This wasn't life at all. He got up and stared in fascination as Heero took the mask off the wall and used it to cover her face. The scarred side. She looked beautiful in her sleep and Duo fled the brothel like hell was on his heels. He wasn't so sure it wasn't.

The bodyguard didn't so much as look their way.


	5. Chapter 5

5:

It was hard to say whether Heero was quiet all the way back to the ship because he was giving Duo some space, or because he was trying to find his own equilibrium and Duo didn't care enough to give it more thought than the initial realisation that Heero was being quiet. He was too grateful for the silence to question it.

He'd killed again. It was, he was afraid to admit, a common occurrence. But this time was different. He didn't consider it murder so much as release. He knew, if she'd had the sense to ask, she would have begged for it. He'd heard them beg before, and given them a similar kindness. It wasn't the knife that made his stomach churn and his skin itch, it was the fact Trowa had used her. Had left her there to deliver her message, knowing full well that Duo or Heero would have to kill her. To silence her, if she even needed silencing. But either way, he'd known Duo would do it, just to put her out of her misery. If she'd had sense to be miserable about it, which she hadn't.

"I'm going to kill him," he snarled as soon as he was safely on board the Reincarnation. Heero left him to his mad pacing, let him stay in the cargo bay and scream insensibly at the walls. Where he went Duo neither knew or cared.

He found him hours later, sitting in the copilots chair, the folder in his lap, several pages from it spread out across the dash board, the computer on and a profile from Preventers database large on the screen.

"Georgio Sahar," he whispered, reading the facts at the top of the screen. Businessman. Entrepreneur. Rich. Sadistic. Suspected involvement in human trafficking. Well, they could correct that one. He trusted Heero to find out what they needed to know and just sat heavily in the pilots seat.

"Are you okay?" It had nothing at all to do with the gig. Duo glared but Heero just waited patiently and it confused Duo.

"I'm fine." It was none of his business. But he was still staring and Duo found himself staring back and wondering much the same thing. He'd never seen Heero, of all people, puke.

"Are you okay?"

"No." Just like that. Duo gaped at him, fish mouth and all. Heero Yuy was not in the habit of admitting weakness, or he hadn't been. Duo didn't really believe it was possible for someone to change quite that much.

"Well...fine. No, I'm not okay." He'd be damned if he let Heero better him at anything, even admissions, though he had to admit if Heero was going to beat him at something he'd picked a damn good thing to try with.

"You did the right thing."

"I know that!" He didn't go around stabbing people when it was the wrong thing, he wasn't completely insane! It annoyed him that Heero thought he needed someone to tell him though, and frustrated him even more that Heero was right, and the words helped. They didn't help ease the desire to break Trowa's damn nose.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Fuck? No?" Duo wondered if Heero was trying to give him a heart attack. He shook his head vehemently and decided it was best to just pretend Heero hadn't asked. Heero never asked those sorts of questions, so yeah...definitely a hallucination or something. Hallucinations didn't mean you were losing your mind, so it was all good.

"Okay."

Damnit. Not a hallucination, and Heero even looked a little hurt but not surprised. It occurred to Duo that maybe Heero had asked because he needed to talk about it. But Duo couldn't bring himself to talk about it at all, even for Heero's sake. Hell, definitely not for Heero's sake.

"So this Sahar guy, he's who we're looking for?"

"I think so," Heero agreed, looking grateful to have something else to concentrate on. "There are a few things in the folder that link directly to him, including a few unexplained purchases in his bank records that match up to Sales in Mettle Valley."

"How do you know when there were Sales in the Valley?"

"I don't, but there is a list of dates and large sums of money in the folder with no title and the dates and sums add up to amounts in Sahar's bank accounts."

"And you got access to Sahar's accounts by..."

"Being the Hero of the World," Heero replied flatly and even Duo had to just stare because that honest to God had sounded like a joke. Was, he was pretty sure, supposed to be a joke. Heero was even just sitting there, waiting for him to laugh because it was, apparently, a joke.

"That's not even funny."

"Doesn't mean I'm going to tell you how I got his accounts," Heero shrugged, looking let down that Duo hadn't laughed. The whole thing was just so surreal, hell being in the Valley at all was so surreal that Duo wanted to run and hide under his bed while the Reincarnation auto piloted him back to the Sweepers. If Howard would still have him, considering he would be rather empty handed.

Just who the hell was he supposed to take back now, anyway? Mariemaia was still supposed to be under house arrest, so she had to go. And there was still a warrant out for Heero's arrest, so he would have to go. And Wufei was, of all things, a damn victim, so he would have to go and at least guest checked into a rehab clinic or something, Duo didn't even know. And then Trowa...well, Trowa deserved a life sentence, and to be neutered so his creepy offspring couldn't populate the world with more drug mules, so he had to come in.

"My work will never be done," he sighed dramatically and Heero just frowned at him, having no idea whatsoever what he was talking about.

"Okay. So, Sahar is selling Wufei, midnight tomorrow, for a billion."

"That's what I'm thinking," Heero agreed.

"Heero, honey, don't do that," Duo admonished, reaching out to mess up Heero's already filthy, greasy hair. "I don't know what I'd tell Relena if you hurt yourself."

Heero looked pissed, and Duo pulled his hand back. Fast. But he was grinning and Heero eventually backed off and took it for the joke it was instead of decking him and Duo was left floundering, wondering just who had cloned Heero Yuy.

"So, I can have the guns transferred to my ship at ten, send Marie to the auction and have Wufei on board by say...one, and be past the asteroid belt by say...three." As long as he made it that far, it was smooth sailing. Nothing would find him, if anything dared give chase to begin with, in the belt and from there he knew several wayward slingshots he could use to go in just about any direction he pleased.

"Marie?"

"Yeah, you know...abrasive little shit, likes to flash gay men? Red hair?"

"You really don't have a high opinion of anyone...do you?" That seemed to offend Heero and Duo just shrugged, contemplating it in all seriousness.

"I have a high opinion of everyone. Doesn't mean it's a good opinion."

"You want to send Marie to the auction?" His tone of voice told Duo just had badly he disapproved of that course of action, but Duo felt no guilt at all. Because the buying Wufei at auction part of their plan had nothing at all to do with him.

"No, Trowa wants Marie to buy Wufei at auction. That's why she's here...remember?" Duo, at least, hadn't forgotten. "Besides, I can't do it without risking my cover as a wannabe gunrunner. No one down on their luck enough to ask for an in to the trade goes out the night before their first run and buys a billion dollar slave. And what's with that price, anyway? I know of countries that don't cost that much to buy!"

"Alright," Heero agreed, after thinking it over. "But you're going to have to teach her whatever she needs to know."

"Are you kidding me? She's knows what to do better than I could fudge! She grew up drowning in money and deceit. Give the girl a little credit, when it comes to rich freaks she knows what to do." Which was exactly why Trowa had commissioned her help. That, and she had a raging crush on their target and would do anything to undo the mistakes she made in her youth that had led to him being in his current predicament in the first place.

"You wouldn't know it, the way she carries on," Heero muttered and Duo laughed because he could well imagine what their ride to Mettle Valley had been like, if Mariemaia had been as pushy the whole way as she'd been since Duo arrived. There were few people Heero put up with for an extended period of time, but he was willing to bet Mariemaia was on Heero's secret list of 'people I am forbidden to cause grievous bodily harm to'. Duo knew first hand that he himself was not on that list. He had surgery scars to prove it.

"You know, I think you have a very skewed idea of my upbringing." What gave Heero the impression he was any better at navigating a drug deal? Or buying a freaking slave? Did he have guttertrash tattooed on his forehead or something?

"I just...I mean you...how you grew up..."

Heero didn't know the half of how Duo had grown up, so it just pissed him off that Heero was even trying to make connections between what may or may not have happened back then and who he was now and what he could or couldn't do.

"Homeless does not equal criminal, bastard. I earned my keep, same as anyone." Honestly, what did the guy think he was, some pick pocketing poor kid in a hessian sack? He'd lived in an orphanage, not a cardboard box, and if it had been creepy when the Doc came to 'adopt' him so what? He got over it and accepted the awesomeness that was hot showers and three meals a day and no porridge.

"Sorry."

"Will you stop apologising, it's creeping me out!"

"No." Just like that. Duo sighed and slumped in his seat, spinning it lazily and wishing he wasn't docked and could take a short joyride just to clear his head. He suspected the dirty air in the Valley was getting to him, but refused to admit it while Heero was still apparently fine.

As if Heero even really understood what an apology was.

"So what's next?"

That had Heero looking at him like he had the two heads thing going on and Duo just shrugged. So he'd put her out of her misery, it wasn't like he hadn't known that was going to happen as soon as he'd seen it was a brothel they were headed for. It hadn't stopped him going in, he'd barely even hesitated, and if Heero hadn't realised the same thing as soon as they got there then more fool him. He had no business being in Mettle Valley if he couldn't find his balls.

"Are you sure..."

"What. Is. Next." Could he make it any plainer? Apparently not.

"There's a note from a dealer saying he's in trouble..."

"No."

"It's old," Heero reasoned.

"I'm not helping a dealer." Had Heero not been in that room, seen what they propagated first hand? But of course he had, he was just somehow able to put it out of his mind, just like that. As if it never happened. Had self destructing been like that? Had dumping Duo with his civilian doctors been that simple?

"I don't think we have to." Meaning Trowa already did? It made Duo cold, inside and out. He honestly didn't believe Trowa could have a good enough excuse, for any of it. They were Gundam Pilots, for crying out loud, he could have just asked.

Or begged, he supposed. Begged Howard, since that was how people contacted him. And maybe something in him relented, just a tiny bit, because he, at least, hadn't really been open to a favour. And if he was honest he knew that was why Howard had insisted.

"Fine. Let's go."

Heero looked him up and down, as if looking for an injury, or a sign of weakness but he must have approved of what he saw because he stood up and followed Duo. It was Heero who disappeared this time, and it rankled because Duo couldn't even say when the soft footfalls following him had disappeared. It had just sort of faded from importance at the front of his mind, and then his subconscious for some reason had decided it wasn't important. How Heero did that, Duo would never understand. It was like he got under your skin and changed things. It creeped him the hell out.

They converged on the address scrawled on the note they could only assume Trowa had received at some point and found themselves looking at a ship, docked on the seventh tube. It looked abandoned, but neither of them was stupid enough to take the chance and Duo went one way, leaving Heero to go the other while they searched for traps.

The ship was smothered in them. Duo disarmed seven wires and a security system through a checkpoint hanging just inside the vacuum guard, but if there was more outside the seal he had no way of checking. He managed to find a decayed seal on the roof of the ship and after checking it over for the hundredth time decided it was worth a try.

He slipped inside and just hung from the rafters while he tried to decide if it was safe to set down; if he was likely to trigger a laser or something else he couldn't see. He was still hanging there, frowning at a control panel he couldn't quite see from this distance when the door at the end of the corridor opened and Heero hurriedly punched in a code.

The lasers scattering the floor buzzed red for a moment, and disappeared. Disgruntled that he'd both been right, and that it had been Heero who figured it out, Duo dropped to the floor and walked over to meet him.

"Took your time," Duo muttered and when all he got was a grunt he looked closer and realised Heero was bleeding. He reached out automatically and snatched up Heero's wounded bicep, shoving his shirt out of the way to get a better look. Laser, just a scratch, and cauterised. He must have grazed it.

Heero tugged his arm free, glaring at Duo but there was an emotion behind the frustration Duo couldn't quite place. Probably annoyance that he hadn't done something perfectly. Duo let him have his arm back, and made a mental note to treat it later. The last thing they needed was for it to get infected in Mettle Valley. That shit killed. Fast.

"Five bedrooms, Mess, Bridge, storage, cargo and a rec room," Heero told him softly and it stung that he'd scoped out just what rooms there were before coming to get Duo down from the ceiling. He reminded himself Heero was injured and tried to convince himself he just hadn't been thinking right. Which was likely, since Heero was never thinking right.

"I'll take the bedrooms, you check the bridge." Firstly, because Heero wouldn't know what to look for in the rooms, and secondly because Duo suspected he already knew what he might find. Heero didn't seem to jump to any of the same conclusions, and just decided the bridge was where he was most likely to find something and off he went, happy as...well, Heero with a mission. Duo waited until he was out of sight before wandering into the first room.

A spare, and he took in small details fast, not wanting to stay long. Everything was fixed firmly to the floor, but that was to be expected in any ship, but this was different. There were additional fixtures everywhere, to allow you to affix more things down in zero gravity. Like a slave or three. There was a blood stain on the doorframe, but it was old and had likely stained the brass. There was a small ensuite attached and he went in and checked the cabinet, not at all surprised to find it stocked with the wrong sort of drug.

He rummaged some more and found a diary stashed in a drawer compartment and collected it, moving on to the next room.

Less fixtures but they were still present. No diary, but a log of expenses and incomings. Duo took that as well and moved on. Each room was similar and each had him feeling colder than before. There were small pieces of evidence in each and Duo collected them dutifully, finding a duffel bag in the back of a closet and stashing it all inside. He even managed to find a captain's log, like the scum on this ship had needed one. Probably habit from the war. If he fought on the wrong side, it wasn't hard to imagine him ending up here. Duo tried not to think too hard on it, because he didn't want to admit just how many people he had likely sentenced to life in Mettle Valley.

"Duo?"

"Coming..." He grit his teeth on all the comebacks he felt rising at the impatient tone in Heero's voice and went to find him, but he'd moved on from the bridge and was in the rec room. Just standing there, staring at the wall.

Duo went to stand at his side and the Duffel fell from limp hands.

The mind map wasn't small; it took up the whole damn wall. It looked suspiciously familiar and Duo took in all the details. It was incredibly detailed, and there was a lot of evidence that should not have existed. There were things there that would send people to prison. For life. That would see them executed, at last.

"Holy shit..."

Heero was silent beside him, just looking at each small piece one at a time, going over the whole wall, and then the next. Duo let him, starting to pull it all down, in order, to be reassembled later if needed. He put it all away in his duffel and when Heero realised what he was doing he helped, meticulous in the way it was placed, memorising how it went because too much effort had gone into putting the pieces together to risk losing even a small piece of it.

"I told you he had his reasons."

Duo was tight lipped and forced himself not to let loose with his initial responses because they were unfair and he knew he was still raw from going through the bedrooms. He wondered if any of those rooms had actually been Trowa's, and tried not to think about it.

"You can't still be mad at him?" Heero looked incredulous and Duo didn't bother to say anything because Heero didn't seem capable of understanding. His knife felt like it weighed a tonne in his boot. Heero would never understand.

"How spectacular does the end have to be, to justify the means?" Was this what it took, for Heero to turn a blind eye? Did he have any concept of the masses it affected? Did he understand how many planets you could smother in the pictures of those lost along the way?

"I didn't think you cared either way," Heero said softly and Duo stood there, stunned, as Heero packed the last of the evidence. It stung, somewhere he hadn't thought it could, maybe because it was Heero who said it and maybe because if he stopped to really think about it, and he did take a minute to do just that, he realised it was maybe just a little bit true.

He'd blocked them, for years. It was why he was here; why Howard had tried to force him, had lured him with the only thing he knew Duo still responded to. Curiosity.

And Heero's name.

He could be that honest with himself, he was here because Heero's name had been on that warrant, and deep down he'd wanted to see him. Wanted to be in a position where he was in charge for once and could observe how he'd changed, evolved. See if it had all been worth it, being the Hero and of the World, instead of... Instead of what they had wanted together.

But while he'd been blocking, and maybe sulking just a little, Trowa had become a monster so he could destroy monsters. Which crime was greater?

He left the duffel with Heero, and he left the ship, trusting Heero to reinstate the security protocols that had been in place, just in case Trowa still needed it, later on. He left Heero entirely, and wandered for a long time. He didn't like what he saw, but that was the point.

Duo forced himself to walk every dark back alley, to look into every sordid corner. He made himself stare into the mouth of the Valley and fall in, sinking in the recesses of human profanity. He made himself comprehend just what he'd tried so hard to turn a blind eye to, because he hadn't believed it could be fixed. Because Relena's precious government hadn't been able to do a damn thing to stop it, no matter how many times they tried.

Because good couldn't conquer evil. Just like Peace hadn't conquered War. They'd sent Gundams to stop it instead; monstrous creations of destruction to make sure everyone had understood. You beat fire with bigger fire.

You couldn't go to the Valley and expect to cuff the culprit. But if you were the shark, the other fish were fair game. Duo might have fallen into the trap of Peace, but Trowa hadn't.

Could he really blame him for that?

It wasn't the Reincarnation he found himself standing in front of, but Heero's ship. He wandered in and found Mariemaia on her bed, sprawled out reading a magazine on guns. It was so out of place he just stared and wondered if maybe she didn't actually belong here.

"You look like shit."

"I'm going to wash your mouth out soon if you don't stop that."

She just smirked at him and waved her feet in his direction. He took the invitation and went to sit next to her, looking over her shoulder at the piece she was looking at and thinking about it, because he had to admit it would have been a good weapon for her. Discreet, but very effective. He would have to see what his new line of work could conjure up. If they were going to be here for a while, he wanted her to be able to defend herself and he doubted cuffing her to Heero would work.

"Tell me about Trowa?"

Stumped by the question, Mariemaia let the magazine fall open on the bed and just stared at him.

"What did you find?" Smart. He always forgot she was smart. Shrewd, he supposed was the right term.

"Evidence. Enough to bring down the whole human trafficking syndicate. All the heads."

Even she gaped and then she frowned and he could almost hear her arguing with herself. He sighed because he was getting damn tired of them hiding things from him. He couldn't be effective if they didn't start giving him all the cards they were playing with. He poked her in the side and lay down next to her, messing up her hair on the way down like he would with Heero in the old days and he felt her shoulders loosen a little. Marginally.

"You found the ship?" She asked quietly and he wondered why he was still surprised she knew about it. That didn't stop him from asking, in his own way, poking her hard in the side and waiting with a very expectant look on his face. The kind that had made Oz officers wet their pants while they spilled what they knew.

"Trowa told me he found it. That it was...time to come. Now." She took deep breaths and he could feel the remnants of her panic. Of the fear she'd felt being roped into Trowa's scheme, and he realised for the first time just how hard she was, inside. The kind of determination she possessed. He shouldn't have been surprised, she had tried to take over the world, after all, but that had just been a little girl being puppeted by the Bartons. Or so he had assumed. Now, it became evident it was just a part of who she was.

It was too easy, sometimes, to forget she was Treize's daughter.

"I can't help you, if you don't give me all the pieces, Marie."

Trust came hard. He knew that better than most and he let her fight that internal struggle in silence because he couldn't make her choose. It was her choice and she must have decided in his favour because she relaxed and stroked the magazine pages, calming herself slowly.

"He came here looking for it. Knew it belonged to a dealer...Wufei had told him about it. He'd intercepted the ship in a drug run and made friends with the pilot, or something. I don't even know. So when Wufei went missing..."

It was the niggling, missing piece of information that made Trowa's entry into the drug trade make sense. Wufei being friends with drug traffickers didn't make sense at all, but he could deal with that later.

"Wait, so you flashed Wufei, Wufei got put on suspension, decides he may as well just keep working, so he goes and finds his old drug trafficking buddies and …" Actually that made a weird sort of sense, if you were Wufei and convinced everyone had to pay for their crimes, yourself included.

"He started gathering information." Understatement! Duo let his head fall to the bed and started laughing because really, he should have known. It was Wufei, after all.

"So Trowa went in search of Wufei and his evidence, but by the time he found it Wufei was already long gone."

"That pretty much covers it," Mariemaia agreed and Duo just lay there for a while, letting it all sink in.

"You should have told us. That ship, the evidence we found, it's enough to stop the trade completely!"

"But it doesn't help Wufei," she pointed out sternly and it was enough to make him pause. She loved him, still. She was out here, just to help find him. Girls, honestly, were insane.

"You know this isn't your fault, right?"

"I'm sorry, did you miss the part where I destroyed his career and reputation with a teenage crush?" She was starting to sound like him on a bad day. It was a sobering thought. No wonder Howard spent so much time glowering at him while he lazed on the deck. Moped, he could admit now. He'd been moping, on the deck.

"He would have done it eventually anyway. As soon as it got too hard for his stupid conscience to handle he would have been off after that ship and it all would have played out the same way."

She was shaking her head and he knew there was no convincing her and just sighed, rolling over onto his back and staring at the ceiling. He couldn't believe what Wufei had done, it was downright insane, but that he'd succeeded was the truly exceptional part. As soon as they got that evidence back to Earth...

...Only he'd left the damn duffel with Heero. Sweepers had better still get paid, if Heero was the one delivering it! But if Heero brought it back, and he and Marie explained they had known where it was and went to collect it, it could save both of them. Heero's record would be clean again, and Marie might even be let off house arrest. That damn folder had a lot of secrets.

"Bastard thought of everything," Duo muttered.

"Trowa?" Mariemaia just laughed. "You have no idea."


	6. Chapter 6

6:

Sleep was hard coming, and Duo woke fitfully through the morning to nightmares of the whore begging him not to kill her, to help her get better instead, and just when he thought she would stop her face would change and Wufei would be begging him instead. He eventually gave up and sat on the bridge of the _Reincarnation_, reading through a history of Mettle Valley, trying to figure out why Wufei had ever thought he could just come out here and fix the problem. The worst part was that he had been so close to succeeding and if he'd just thought for even a moment that he could trust them, that they could do it as a team, it would have been a finished thing already.

But it was very clear that Wufei hadn't thought he could trust them. Hadn't even thought to trust Trowa, his own damn lover. Had instead, eventually, when everything seemed lost, trusted a teenage girl who was the very reason he was so screwed over to begin with. There was irony in there somewhere, but Duo found himself too swamped by the whole affair to try and find it.

He woke to a stale mouth and sweat cooled on his skin and sighed, because he couldn't afford a shower. He settled for dunking a bucket of cold water over himself and a change of clothes. Still dirty clothes, but at least they didn't smell as bad. It was mid afternoon everywhere else in the universe, and Duo stared out the bridge window at the stars beyond and wondered if it was possible to go mad from sun deprivation. He knew it was, but he was trying to figure out if it could happen to _him._ He missed it, and it was probably the last thing he really felt, deep in his bones. He'd reconciled himself to the loss of everything else, but the sun...to lose the sun would be something else.

He made a few quick alterations to his spare room, making sure there were clean linens on the bed, but ones he didn't mind tossing at the same time, because he had no doubts rehab wasn't going to be pretty for Wufei. But he put in some safeguards of his own; a secure cuff point on the headboard of the bed, a fresh first aid kit in the desk drawer, and he double checked that everything was securely fastened.

Then he did some research on exactly what he was in for. He'd been right. It wasn't pretty. Haze was fast, and effective. It was also pretty damn permanent, not that the traffickers cared. It did things to nerves Duo didn't want to think about, focussing instead on how to get someone clear of it. Twenty four hours of hell; screaming fire burning, itch maddening hell. Every description of it made his own skin itch and his stomach roil. Then the stuff literally bled from your pores and he was glad he had changed the sheets and hoped Howard didn't mind footing the bill for a new mattress. But the eyes and mind were the worst affected. There was a cream to be rubbed around the eyes, and then they were to be covered, bandaged in place so no light could get in. To regain sight, you had to lose it. For a while. The consolation was that most had been blind for so long they didn't notice. They sure as hell noticed their eyes bleeding as the chemicals were drawn out.

There was a disconnect necessary, where Duo had to concentrate on just getting ready to help a Haze-addict through rehab, but he couldn't let himself acknowledge who it was. He found himself slipping every now and then though, as he read through description after description and he kept getting flashbacks to the girl on her bed in the whore strip and the aching awareness that she had known, somewhere deep down, who she was and what had been done to her. He couldn't decide if he was hoping it was a sign Wufei would still remember who he was, or that it had been a fluke and Wufei would have no idea what had been done to him. He was leaning toward the latter, very much aware that either way Wufei was going to remember coming off Haze, and would know exactly who to blame for that Hell.

He gave up researching when it was just starting to repeat itself and he knew he had everything he was going to need. Then he locked the spare room and did his best to forget about it entirely, focussing on clearing the cargo bay and getting it ready to receive actual cargo. It didn't take a lot of work; he actually had to mess it up a bit to make it look like the trash dump he should have brought to Mettle Valley if he had really been as down and out on his luck as he was trying to make it seem. Howard kept damn clean and up to date ships, and the _Reincarnation_ might have looked like it would fall apart if you tapped it hard from the outside, one look at the inside told you it was completely deception. So he dirtied it up, pouring grease and oil across the floor and then tossing in some sand for good measure. Even sloshed some paint around to give it a rusted, used effect, and then sealed it off from the rest of the ship.

It was a good job. He stood in the middle of it all and grinned because he was apparently an expert at making a mess, not that he hadn't known that but this took the cake. He even took a photo of it, so he could show Howard just what he'd had to do to his baby. The old man had no one to blame but himself, after all. He'd wanted Duo to take the Gig.

Now he just had to fill it with cargo. He didn't bother cleaning himself up, it all just added to the illusion and he locked the ship up and went to see Old Duke.

The man was waiting for him, standing lazily against the crates as if he were just watching the world go by instead of getting ready to start a deal. Duo schooled his whole demeanor into the old familiar game. It was a fine line between being nervously competent and competently nervous. He didn't want Duke to see the latter; that would get the Gig called off faster than Duo could exhale, and would likely see him dead to boot. But he'd played the game long enough to pull it off sleepwalking and Old Duke shook his hand readily enough.

"You sure you want to do this?" It was nice, really, that he was bothering to double check but Duo just nodded vehemently and endured being scrutinized for a full three minutes before Old Duke sighed and shrugged as if to say 'what can I do'. Give the kid a chance.

In the Valley, no one wanted anyone else to know what business they were doing, so they all used identical crates. They were everywhere, standard military issue and available at every outdoor store on every colony, even if it looked like Mettle Valley had bought out the universe's supply. They were huge, ungainly things that had to be carried by two men or more if they were heavier, or could just be shoved on a trolley. Or a forklift, which was what Old Duke had piled them on.

"The top crate has your destination and drop information," Old Duke made sure he understood, speaking slow and clear as if trying to calm Duo's nerves. It was sort of cute, in a very, very strange way. Duo just nodded, deliberately wide eyed as he got on the forklift and listened to Duke's instructions for that as well. Heavy pedal, don't push it too hard, faulty gasket. Right.

"And remember...if you don't come back with the money, I'll come find you and take it from your bones." Because skin had value in the Valley. Duo didn't need to fake the wide eyes, because while he'd heard such threats before, he'd never really thought the bastard dishing them out would go through with it. This time he believed it wholeheartedly. He wouldn't have been surprised if Old Duke had taken him out back to show him his wall mounted skins collection, but was grateful the man abstained.

He made reassurances, though he couldn't have reiterated what came out of his mouth to anyone else. He took a convoluted, deliberately worthless route back to his ship, enjoying the hell out of just puttering around on the forklift, crashing into a few random things for no better reason than he could. It wasn't like anyone would notice a few extra scratches, the thing looked like it was a hundred years old, and likely was.

When he finally got to his ship he just stood in the cargo bay and sighed, because he had a forklift of crates to stow that he couldn't actually lift. He had no idea how long he stood there before Heero stepped up and grabbed the handle on one side, waiting patiently.

"Shut up, I would've got it figured out."

"Of course you would." But having help was definitely much easier. They got it all unpacked and stowed away in under an hour, which was saying something because Old Duke had certainly packed the damn things. Duo hated to think just how much money he would be lining the man's pockets with, and just reminded himself it wasn't as much as was already in his own. He just didn't make a habit of using his income to ensure the misery of others.

"The crates are pretty heavy..."

"No shit," Duo snapped but something about the way Heero said it made him pause and he found himself staring at one for a while before he figured it out.

"Empty crate with a person in it shouldn't be too hard to handle between you and Marie. I'll tail you, just in case you can't manage it."

"Thanks," Heero approved. Duo had no idea why that approval made his chest ache, it just did and he didn't give it any more thought than that. He was too distracted anyway, thinking of Wufei shoved in a crate, because he was merchandise now. Had been, by all accounts, for a while.

"How's Marie?"

"She's fine, raiding her wardrobe for something presentable and having a shower, moaning a lot about how good it feels..." Heero shrugged, looking uncomfortable. Duo suspected Mariemaia wasn't big on bothering with modesty and had traipsed around the ship half naked all morning 'getting ready'. It made him grin and Heero actually blushed. Duo wished he'd had his camera handy.

"Alright. We're good here, temporary access code is 258766."

"Altron?" He hadn't even needed a minute to puzzle it out, which rankled but wasn't all that surprising so Duo just nodded and went about locking up. Making sure all his security protocols were in place because the last thing he needed was someone stealing his cargo before he even left the Valley.

They separated just past the clock tower and Duo didn't bother trying to keep up with Heero, just left him to it, because it wasn't part of his job to do the actual meat market anyway. He just had to carry the meat, and pray he wasn't the butcher.

Heero was waiting impatiently in the hallway when he did finally catch up and Duo raised a questioning brow but only got a shrug in reply. Curious, Duo looked at the closed door and carefully knocked, wondering if Heero had even bothered.

"Yuy, I told you I was nearly done and I meant _nearly_, in the way girls mean nearly, which translates to when I'm fucking ready!"

"Just how many times did you knock?" Duo asked politely, amused as all hell when Heero just looked uncomfortable. Enough, was the answer, though neither of them needed to say it. So they stood there, feeling rather useless and waited until she was ready. Duo was sure she sat on her bed a few more extra minutes just to make them sweat.

When she did open the door all Duo could do was stare.

"Hot damn, kiddo!"

She was in a skin tight black cocktail dress that did something strangely slutty around the shoulders, giving way to straps upon straps down the low cut back. It barely covered her ass before long dark stocking-clad legs led down to...military black polished combat boots. She had a necklace on that looked damn expensive and her hair was loose but styled, looking like she'd just climbed out of bed after a good lay in the hay, so to speak.

"One of these days you'll remember I'm not a child any more," she sniffed haughtily and Duo just kept looking her up and down and wondering if Wufei hadn't been seducing her after all. Only, she really had been a child back then, but he had to agree she certainly wasn't one now. She was also...tall. Not quite his height, but still leggy for a woman.

"You can shut your mouths now," she noted, rolling her eyes. She'd done something with her face. It was clean, for starters, only not because her eyes had a smokey blend around them and there was a touch of orange shadow that matched her hair sticking to the ends of otherwise long, dark lashes. She looked filthy rich and yet the boots added a touch of the Valley. Of street smarts. If he'd been straight Duo would have been shoving her back into the room and not letting her out again. He was tempted to do it anyway, to see if he could get a rise out of Yuy.

"I need your card and the code," she demanded, holding out her hand and Duo scowled, because he'd almost forgotten how they were paying for all this. It was a little too easy, sometimes, to distract himself until the last possible minute. Which was apparently now. He fished the card out of his pocket and put it in her hand, but glared at her sternly.

"It is for the purchase of one thing only. If it doesn't end up costing that much, the change is not for...lip gloss or new shoes." He looked her up and down again and then smirked. "Not that you couldn't use some new ones."

"Excuse me? These are vintage, I'd have you know!"

"And should've stayed that way," Duo agreed, but he was enjoying the banter, letting it distract him as she tucked the card away. In her bra. He sighed and wondered just who the hell had raised the kid, because it sure as hell hadn't been Relena. Maybe Wufei'd had the right idea, fleeing to the other side of the known universe, where no one was supposed to be able to find you.

"We need to go. We're going to be fashionably late as it is," Heero noted grimly and Duo looked over at him and realised Heero...wasn't looking the part. Or not how Duo would have expected. He was still dirty, still dressed in jeans and a shirt, though he'd added a jacket. It was a far cry from the nonsense suit he wore while being Hero of the World and Relena's bodyguard, but that suit would have been far too recognisable. Neither of them looked anything like their public images, and if Duo had walked in on them in a room of strangers a week ago looking like they did now he couldn't be certain he would have recognised them. Which meant their disguises were pretty damn good.

Weird, since he really liked Heero's new bodyguard getup. It might have had something to do with the leather jacket, or the way too expensive 'vintage', as Marie would have put it, jeans or it might really have just come down to the fact he had a soft spot for combat boots. The really dirty, beat up kind and not the plastic overly shined variety, though he had to admit those suited Kushrenada damn well.

"Kisses for luck," Mariemaia protested and before Duo had any time to react at all she had leaned in and planted one on his lips. Maybe he'd had a little time to react, but the first thought he'd had was 'huh?', followed quickly by 'she must be talking to Heero, but she's leaning this way,' followed closely by 'holy fuck she was talking to me!' The kiss was light and chaste, but it was not something he had expected or wanted and she seemed very aware of that, smirking and blowing a kiss to Heero where he was fuming.

"Hey, her fault, I had nothing to do with it!" The grunt he got in reply was still unimpressed and Duo had to wonder just what Heero was upset about. It was just a peck on the lips, nothing fancy and he really hadn't instigated it at all. Heero had been right there to witness it himself. But maybe that had been the problem?

He was still puzzling it out as Heero took point, letting Mariemaia follow a little more regally at his heels. Duo disappeared, trusting them to secure their own ship upon departure, and tailing them as best he could, trying to make sure no one realised who they were or suspected anything, and if they did to take care of it. But the way was clear and he soon found himself staring at a reasonably intact building. There was gold lettering over the double doors but Duo had no idea what it said so in his mind he read it as 'Pig Market'.

He snuck in through a back entrance, getting to know the guy on the door, and from there it wasn't hard to get one L2 immigrant to let another in to just have a quiet peek around, though the guy promised to make his life in the Valley a living hell if Duo caused any trouble. It was an agreement Duo was happy to make, since unless everything went pear shaped with Heero and Mariemaia he'd just be standing in a corner, watching. Like they agreed.

Stepping in to the Pig Market was like stepping out of the Valley and into a Gentleman's Club of old. Or maybe something Quatre would find squirreled away in the labyrinth of the business zone of L4. There were small round tables in a large den-like arena, each with a stripper pole at its heart and a dancer entertaining whoever had taken up residence. But the lights were dim on the mainstage, a long runway with a circle at the end and a ring of booths surrounding it, each closed off and concealing those within. The waitresses were naked with a simple chain belt at the waist, an account scanner attached if anyone chose to tip them. They moved through the room as if through water, smooth and near invisible.

The room reeked of money, and of filth. Duo roamed it with senses sharpened, the memory of Sahar's name giver fresh in the forefront of his mind. He wanted to strip the place down to it's bare bones and burn it to the ground before stomping on its ashes with Deathscythe. He had to continuously remind himself that there would not be many more Sales. They just had to find Trowa and figure out what the hell was going on, and then all of this would be a distant memory until they found a new place to make it happen.

Duo was determined to get there first from now on. To make sure this didn't happen again. He wasn't sure why he'd been conned into sitting on the sidelines of the issue for as long as he had, but indifference had a way of seeping into your soul and stealing off with it while no one was looking. Leaving you none the wiser until you finally died and neither heaven or hell would have you, because there was nothing there left to fight over.

"Drink, Sir?"

He took it without really looking at it, knowing he wasn't going to drink it anyway, but needing the prop to keep his hands busy and give him a reason for just standing there gawping. He found an empty table and sat heavily in the velvet lounge, sinking into the plush material and sighing because if nothing else, the seats were paradise. Nothing wet sank through his clothes, no dirt moulded itself to his skin. The couch was far cleaner than he was. It was a nice change.

A dancer appeared and he made a habit of topping up her tips card every fifteen minutes or so and she seemed grateful to be able to just dance, not caring that he wasn't really paying her any attention. He had found Heero and Mariemaia, in a booth to his right, near the edge of the stage, shadowed but visible to him because he'd known to look for that crazy orange hair. They seemed at ease, talking softly between themselves and Duo relaxed, ignoring them and focussing on those around them instead, because if there was going to be trouble it wouldn't come from inside the booth.

The lights went out and the Sale began. A man in a tuxedo came out and Duo had to give the guy points; you wouldn't catch him dead in white in the Valley. But the clothes were flawlessly pure and starched and his hair was combed back and gelled, just so. He looked expensive and he wasn't even for sale.

The first piece of merchandise was announced and Duo forced himself not to stare at the girl who didn't have to be dragged out. Tall and lanky, malnourished and high, she sauntered where she was asked and showed what she was told to flaunt and men laughed softly in their booths and the bidding began. It didn't go high and she didn't care, led offstage when it was done to be crated up and collected at the back door.

The second piece of merchandise was younger, not as addicted and had enough sense to try to cover herself. Duo looked up at his stripper, at her hazed eyes and forced back the wetness in his own gaze, blaming it on the brightness of the stage lights and the smoke in the air.

The third and fourth were to be sold as a pair, a set of twins, beautiful and well trained the man assured the audience. Duo wanted to take the microphone and shove it down the host's throat and see what his sultry voice sounded like then because right then it was the last thing he wanted to hear over the girl's wails and her brother's anguished pleas. New slaves, not yet blinded and bound with Haze. Fresh meat. They went for millions.

On it went until Duo couldn't say how many had passed through the runway, and gone just as quickly with a new price tag. He wondered if they ever fetched less than their masters had hoped, and what final present their masters left them with as a result, to ensure their displeasure was remembered long after a new patron took ownership.

It was the description that eventually gave him away, not the visage, because when Wufei slipped out from the curtains Duo was certain he would never have recognised him at all.

"Lethal Lotus Dragon," the man was saying but Duo's whole world narrowed and all he could do was stare. True to his Chinese heritage, Wufei hadn't grown much taller than he had been at eighteen, the last time Duo had seen footage of him, but he'd had the strength in his wiry muscled form to hold Trowa down well enough. The gymnast-like sculpture of his body was gone, replaced with thin lines and curves. It made him seem taller, but when he stood by the host he reached the man's shoulder. His neck looked longer, slender and tall as he held his head high, looking out into the ocean beyond the lights. Beyond the silver haze clear in his vision, making his eyes seem to glow. His skin was pale and clearly hadn't seen the sun in years, like paper, making the slinky dark skirt they had dressed him in look like liquid shadow pooling on his heels. His hair was longer and had been adorned with fine braids and red and gold beads that sparkled in the light, held up in an elaborate gold frame so he looked like something out of a star wars film. There was a bright spiel of colour down his right shoulder and arm; a dragon, Duo realised but not the chinese one he might have expected. It was more like a honey eater, perched as it was among the cherry blossoms, looking ready to leap off skin and suckle anyone who came close.

He was the most androgynous thing Duo had ever seen, and judging by the gasps and movement in the shadowed alcoves around the stage, he wasn't the only one thrown for a loop. Duo looked across to see Heero's face, wondering if his own looked quite so drained, or quite so fascinated. They had been expecting an addict, not something out of a twisted fairytale.

The host was still talking, trying to sell Wufei as if he needed anything more than to just walk out and stand there. But Duo forced himself to focus, to listen, because this was information a future owner was supposed to know.

"Blind, but not completely tamed. Can you tame the beast?" As if a Gundam pilot could be tamed. Duo seethed inside at the very idea, but pride swelled as well because Wufei was still in there somewhere. Still fighting, if his sales pitch was to be believed.

"Perfect pain slut," the man was saying and it caught Duo's attention mainly because Wufei was being led closer by a second aide, placed neatly beside the salesman and Duo had to sit on his hands as he watched the bastard pull out a boken.

The man kept talking, but Duo heard nothing but the mad buzzing in his ears, his own consciousness telling him to act when he knew he couldn't. The devil and angel that argued for dominance deep inside both fell silent as the salesman took an overly exaggerated sword stance, lifted the wooden sword and brought it down hard on Wufei's outstretched arm.

The audible sound of bone breaking silenced the room. Wufei didn't so much as flinch.

The bidding started immediately, people screaming numbers from their booths despite it being unnecessary when bids were entered mechanically. Duo watched the lights flicker inside the booths and held his breath as the totals were tallied. They had taken the price on faith, that Trowa knew what was going on, but the salesman was grinning and Duo knew they had it.

"One billion dollars. A stunning bid, for a truly exceptional piece of art," he was saying as Wufei walked in a straight line, not looking blind at all, from the stage and disappeared behind the curtain.

The Sales continued and Duo waited through the next four, gritting his teeth and holding back the need to leave until Heero and Mariemaia carefully extricated themselves from their booth and left through the acquisitions door. Where they went, Duo couldn't follow and he fled the den like satan himself were on his heels, thanking his stripper profusely and making a quick exit. By the time he was out of the immediate vicinity he was running, sprinting through dark alleys and just trying to burn off the excess energy. The horror and the blinding need to destroy.

When he was calmer, still raging with fury but able to hold his hands still, he checked his surroundings. Double checked. Triple, and only when he was certain that no one was following did he start trekking back to his berth, and even then he checked. Over and over again.

The Reincarnation was blessedly dark and Duo went straight to the bathroom, to the shower. He put the water on scalding and stepped in clothes and all, watching the dirt and slime pool around his feet and grabbing for the soap. The shampoo. The scrubber. He didn't have a lot of time but he took a good half hour to clean himself off and when he stepped out of the shower his skin was red, but visible. He tied his hair back up wet, having no time for it and went to watch the security screens for Heero and Mariemaia.

He had to remind himself constantly that Mariemaia wasn't a Gundam Pilot, and would need time to carry a crate that size, even with Heero on the other side. Every minute that ticked by made him colder, more convinced something had gone wrong.

Heero was standing in front of the camera, unblinking. Focussed. Duo went out to open the doors and found Mariemaia in the shadow of the ship's hull, hidden from any prying eyes. Together, they got the crate on board, strapped it hard against the cargo wall, triple checked it wasn't going anywhere and then it really was time to go.

Heero met his gaze and looked ready to say something. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and then shook his head as if thinking better of it. He reached out instead and squeezed Duo's shoulder, and then he was gone, snatching up Mariemaia's hand and fleeing into the back streets of Mettle Valley. Shadows in a world without a sun.

The cargo bay doors creaked quietly as they closed and Duo stood there in the silence with the crate for company, and cried.


	7. Chapter 7

7:

Duo wasn't stupid. He was on a schedule, but he still hesitated. He checked his destination first, and wondered just why anyone on L1 wanted a shipment of weapons that large, but he would just have to tell Une about it later. He did a few laps of the cargo bay, just reading through all the details and getting to know the job, until he was certain he had it all locked away upstairs.

He wandered over to the crate and cautiously opened the viewing slot on the top, shining a torch in to check it really was Wufei in there. He flinched away from the light, but it was definitely him. And then Duo left him there and went to get them the hell out of Mettle Valley.

There were few sounds sweeter than a ship engine warming up, thrusters opening and the slow manouveur out into open space. He enjoyed the preparation of it, the growing sense of impending-something. He held his breath as he opened her up and she shot skywards, out into the stars. He kept her on full until he was well clear of anything that might think of chasing them, and then he ran a scan to make sure no one had planted anything on the ship. The only foreign bodies were in the cargo bay and he was able to identify each easily.

Free. At last. Duo sat back in the pilot's seat and stared at the stars until he no longer had any excuse but to get back to work. It was a moment he'd needed, and he felt no shame in taking it.

The crate still sat there, innocently enough, no sound coming from it. That was what irritated Duo the most; the lack of anything. A true Haze addict would have been moaning and moving about in there like an eel. That Wufei wasn't made Duo very, very curious.

He opened the lock cautiously and pulled the first flap open quickly, standing back as if he expected Wufei to jump out like a jack in the box, but the man was still. Perfectly so, curled up in the corner around his broken arm, hair covering his face, breathing even. Asleep.

Duo sighed and opened the box the rest of the way, turned to open the door to the main corridor and when he turned back to reach into the crate, reached in to empty air. Something hard came down on his shoulders and Duo hit the crate hard, chest first.

"Fuck!"

Another blow hit the back of his knees and he barely kept himself from tumbling head first into the crate, which was very likely the idea and instead sank deliberately to the floor, rolling to the side and narrowly avoiding the next strike. The scabbard of a tanto, Duo realised. He wasn't even been attacked with the blade, just its damn sheath, though he caught the flash of the blade in Wufei's other hand.

Wufei tilted his head to the side, listening and Duo waved a hand near the man's face and watched him drop back, frowning and contemplating the area. He really was completely blind, and still kicking Duo's ass if the fiery pain in his chest was anything to go by.

"Think," Duo muttered to himself and forced himself to do it. Wufei was blind, which would make it a lot easier to get inside his defences, but why was he attacking him to begin with? And how? Haze addicts could barely hold their arms out for an embrace, he'd certainly never heard of one sustaining a well thought out attack. It was why the traffickers used Haze; it made the merchandise pliable.

The tanto scraped past his arm and Duo had a moment to acknowledge Wufei had gotten faster; that while he had dropped a lot of strength he was light enough now to move beyond Duo's ability to catch him without exerting himself. He was as graceful as ever and Duo ended up toying with him a little, just to watch the swift dance of bare feet across the cargo room floor. Which was what had him end it in the end, because Wufei's feet had to freezing, and he didn't seem to notice it at all.

Duo fainted to the left, Wufei felt it and went with him to the right but couldn't sense the punch that Duo brought up into his ribs. A trick he'd learned first hand from Heero. And then pinched Wufei's neck and waited for the nerve to knock him out cold, catching him as he slumped and shaking his head at how damn light he was.

"You are such a pain in the ass," he muttered to the unconscious form, carrying Wufei down the hallway and into his spare room, laying him down on the bed and quickly cuffing him to the headboard. Just in case.

He pried the tanto from Wufei's fingers and examined the weapon, not surprised to find it was folded steel, a stunning weapon with exceptionally beautiful craftings of the honey suckle dragon wound around the hilt and kissing the blade. It reminded Duo of Wufei's tattoo and he looked at it in the fresh light of the cabin and whistled low under his breath.

The thing was stunning; all metallic inks that shimmered like real dragon scales in deep reds, oranges, pinks and gold while the bark of the the cherry blossom branch shimmered with gold and silver highlights. The dragons eyes looked real, but the thing didn't look dangerous as it wound its way off Wufei's shoulder and down his bicep. It just looked curious, and innocent.

They'd broken his left arm, but the tanto sheath was clutched hard in his left hand. Duo pried it free and put the weapon in the desk drawer, far beyond Wufei's reach, and then went about resetting the arm. It wasn't something he liked doing; broken bones just gave him the creeps. It was the noise they made, either breaking or being put back together, that grinding hideous snap that you felt in your gut that screamed 'pain', even if it wasn't yours. Duo hated that sound, but he brought it from somewhere under Wufei's skin and snapped the arm back into place, hoping it was really as straight as it looked on the outside, and then putting a brace on it from the first aid kit. There wasn't a whole lot else he could do without an x-ray and a proper doctor so he moved on.

He applied the cream to Wufei's closed lids, put a pad over each eye and bandaged it into place, concerned by the traces of silver evident even in Wufei's eyelids. He'd obviously been on the substance for a while, which didn't go a long way to explaining what the hell had happened in the cargo bay.

He artfully hung an i.v over the bed, then taped it into place with several layers of tape around Wufei's elbow so he couldn't pull the stupid thing out while he thrashed.

And then he left him there. He went to the bridge and put in his course and a landing request for L1. He went to the mess and made himself a bowl of canned soup. He checked on his cargo. He read a damn book. He did anything to distract himself from first the moans coming from the other room. Then the screams. Not once did Wufei make any kind of sound that could be interpreted as an actual damn word. He didn't curse anyone, didn't beg for anything, just let out restrained, desperate cries that went unanswered.

They were halfway to L1 when they died down enough that Duo risked going in again. The bed was soaked in pink sweat, Wufei looked unconscious and uncomfortable on the bed but Duo didn't take any chances. He approached cautiously and changed over the fluids, putting up a new bag and then taking a towel to mop up the sweat drying on Wufei's skin. It was just day one, so there was no point changing the sheets yet.

The bandage around Wufei's head came off and Duo was stunned at the grey colour of the white pads he had placed over Wufei's eyes the night before. He took them off and recoiled at the sticky, drying grey clumps of cream caked over his eyes. Hurriedly, he washed it off and went to get the cream for a reapplication.

Wufei's eyes were open, just a little, his breathing up. Awake, when Duo came back to the bed.

"Wufei?"

A frown, his breathing further elevated.

"Shhh...It's alright. You're safe, everything will be fine now." Just peachy, he didn't even know if the man was going to see again, but maybe the words helped. They didn't seem to be though, Wufei's breathing was ragged and it was obvious he was in pain. He was sweating again, little pink pearls forming on his skin and Duo wiped them away as quickly as they formed. But Wufei was still struggling, trying to remember.

"Maxwell?" Trying, Duo realised, to place a name to his voice. It made him grin.

"Yeah, Chang. It's me. You're on the Reincarnation. You're safe."

He just...deflated. Breathing evened out and he passed out cold, letting go of whatever he'd been struggling to hold on to. Awareness, Duo suspected. That strangle hold he'd had on himself through the Haze, much like the whore had once she'd delivered her message. Duo had no idea what kind of self control was required to hold onto that sense of self, but he knew it wasn't something most were capable of. Rare, he knew it was. He felt ridiculous for feeling proud that Wufei had tried to kill him, under orders or by his own choice didn't matter. Wufei had had enough of himself to manage it still under his control.

The screaming fits started again, and Duo left him alone until the periods of lucidity, coming in to mop up the mess or change the fluids of just whisper reassurances. To take his pulse and give him a shot of adrenalin to keep his heart pumping when it was too weak to manage on its own.

The silences were almost worse; he felt compelled to run in, to check his pulse and the fear didn't subside each time, it only grew, reminding himself of the statistics, that most didn't make it even this far through the withdrawal. Wondering how he could make the drop while Wufei was dying in his cabin. What if he stopped breathing while Duo wasn't there? What if he drowned in his own vomit? What if he somehow got an arm free and tore off his own skin to try and make it stop?

He forced himself to focus on the run. Forced himself to dock at L1, flashed a fake Preventers badge to ensure no one would ask questions about his ship, and we focussed on completing the job he was there to do. Gun trafficking, of all things. Disgusting, but the lesser of a few great evils.

Also, he was a little loathe to admit, a trade he had experience in. Not often, but occasionally Sweepers got offered a little on the side, for a particular sort of gig. Retrieve the cargo, and then sell it, but those willing to buy weren't the sort they should have been selling to. But it had been Howard's decision and in the end Duo had chosen to fly with it, a few times. When he could figure out just where the cargo would end up. In this case he really had no idea.

It was the memory of the twins at the Sale that made him go through with it. Their faces, still so new to the concept of being sold and for all he knew it had been their first time on the block. Eyes still clean of the Haze, not addicted yet, still not blinded and still in complete control of themselves. The look on the boy's face as he stared defiantly out at the crowd before his sister had started crying and then the slow crumbling of all their defences until they were dragged away. Still blubbering. Their faces haunted him as he got the clearance and he knew it wouldn't matter where the guns ended up, so long as he was going to be staying up all night wondering what Wufei had been like at his first Sale. If he'd cried. If he'd thought someone might save him. If his hopes had been crushed. If he'd been dragged, kicking and screaming.

He had to be off the ship for seven whole hours, first unloading the cargo into a freight container and then transporting it to the drop zone. Minding it, watching and waiting and then collecting the cash. It went smoothly, as expected from a rookie job. Old Duke wasn't a fool; he hadn't given Duo anything he hadn't known would go flawlessly, which meant this was a common drop. Which meant, in the future, Duo would be able to come back and maybe start undoing what he'd done today. He let himself have that small hope, because little else was staying in his gut.

When he went back he sealed the cargo doors, tossed his bag of goods to replenish his first aid stock in the hallway and just stood at Wufei's door, listening intently, but there was no sound. He shoved the door open and stormed in, ready to perform CPR, or a lobotomy or an exorcism, or whatever the hell might bring Chang Wufei back from the dead.

He hadn't expected to find Wufei sitting up against the headboard, knees drawn up against his chest, looking strangely...peaceful. His bandaged head tilted in Duo's direction and there was a moment's hesitation. Duo saw his chest rise and fall as Wufei struggled to control his breathing and not react to the door opening.

"It's me," he helped and Wufei relaxed, visibly falling back into the pillows and letting his grip on his legs loosen. Duo wandered in, stunned because by all accounts Wufei should have been dead or close to it, but while there was a new sheen of blood sweat on him he was otherwise completely awake. Aware.

"What the fuck is going on here, I thought you were supposed to be a Haze addict?" Duo demanded, collecting his bag of goods from the floor and storming in, tossing them on the table and hurriedly changing over Wufei's fluids.

"Would you prefer I thrashed and moaned and screamed until the ship was investigated?"

"Smartass," Duo grumbled but he threw a towel at Wufei and watched him gratefully rub himself down with his good hand. The movements were hurried and jerky, the only sign Wufei was still in significant pain and trying very hard to control it. Deny it, maybe. Do whatever voodoo trick he'd been using since his capture to retain that iron-clad sense of self.

"How are you feeling?" If he was honest, he was asking purely to be perverse. He knew Wufei was suffering but he wasn't doing it in the way Duo expected, or in the way Duo suspected he would have had their positions been reversed. It just wasn't normal to be that calm about it all and he wanted Wufei to admit it.

"I've been better," Wufei admitted softly, and there was the ghost of a smile on his lips but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced with a dark frown that Duo recognised as Sorrow. It was a kick in the guts for asking in the first place and Duo found himself just staring, taking in the differences that made Wufei seem like a different person entirely. It had him grinning and Wufei's frown deepened.

"Are you laughing at me?" When you put it that way, it was cruel and unusual punishment, but the man had gotten captured, so really...he was going to get some ribbing. When he got better and didn't look half like a corpse and half like a walking wet dream.

"No, just...grinning?" He felt bad admitting even that much. "It's just...your hair..." And really, it was funny. They'd taken out the gold frame that had been in it, but the braids and beads were still there, and while they were actually pretty cool, it was still sticking out in all directions from the spray or whatever the hell they had used to make it stay in the frame in its ornate design. Add to that the bandage and the way some of it was stuck under the bandage and other bits had escaped and stuck out on top and Wufei's head looked like a very strange, oiled birds nest.

"You're making fun of me?" Wufei gaped at him and even that looked rather hilarious, with half his face hidden under the white gauze. Duo felt unrepentant, realising it was helping somehow. That Wufei was better able to grasp hold of himself and assert some sort of personality while Duo was doing the same.

"Damn straight. You look ridiculous." Ridiculous, but small and fascinating and exotic, and just...not like what Duo had been expecting. He was still Wufei, but Duo suspected it was his personality that made him seem that way, because he didn't recognise a whole lot of the old fifteen year old kid that had fought in a Gundam. He definitely didn't see a lot of the eighteen year old who'd been one of Preventers top agents. Wufei, like all of them, had changed.

"If you took some care wrapping my head up, maybe I wouldn't," Wufei sniffed. Actually stuck his nose in the air and sniffed at him, and Duo just laughed. Hard and free and was rewarded with another of those small, barely there smiles. As if Wufei were proud of himself. As if just making a joke was against the rules and he liked the rebellion. Liked being able to rebel.

"I should change that," Duo noted softly and Wufei shrugged, not caring one way or the other. Maybe not seeing a point to it. Duo removed the bandage slowly, then just stared at the once again filthy eye patches. He had to use water to soak them off, because the cream had glued them to Wufei's face, thick and congealed and really, really disgusting. Duo took his time, making sure he cleaned Wufei's face entirely with disinfectant before going to get the tube again.

When he came back, he paused, just waiting because Wufei had his eyes open, just a crack, slowly raising one hand and then dropping it, looking aside and Duo bit his lip. Hard. Wufei's face was misery, completely lost, hope destroyed and he watched as Wufei struggled with it, pushed it down, schooled himself into control again and the lines of worry disappeared, smoothing out until Wufei once again looked like a doll.

Duo reached out slowly, putting the tube of cream aside to take both of Wufei's hands in his own, squeezing gently. He wondered what it was like, to be blind. To be blinded by Haze.

"It's not dark," Wufei admitted softly. "I can see...shadows, but the light hurts and it makes you...focus on the darkness." He shivered and Duo could see the effort it took to stop, to be still and to make himself smile faintly. Fakely.

But what was it like, to have that reminder? To literally see only the Haze; a grey, dark version of the world? A constant reminder of what had been done. It was almost crueller than blindness. At least in the dark you could forget how it happened.

"It's only been two days, and there's a lot of crap coming out. Give it a while. They say it can take months..." He had no idea why he was trying to reassure Chang Wufei, who had to know the odds as well as he did. There was just something in him that wouldn't sit still anymore; that couldn't ignore it the way he wanted to. He'd taken one look at Wufei sitting there, hugging his legs and he couldn't do it anymore. That ache in his gut had reached his chest and unfrozen some small corner of his heart so it could wriggle in and set up camp, waving its little white flag. The flag in his head looked like Wufei's pants from the war and had him grinning again.

"You smell...clean," Wufei observed and it made Duo laugh, breaking the moment.

"The Valley's not exactly the poster child for hygiene," he agreed and Wufei snorted softly. "I had a shower as soon as I knew I would be away for a few days."

Wufei was quiet for a minute, worrying his lower lip between his teeth and Duo just watched and waited, understanding dawning and he just waited, wanting Wufei to ask for some reason. Maybe of the opinion Wufei needed to.

"Can I...shower?"

"I can do better than that," Duo agreed. "I have a bath." He reached out to slowly unwrap the tape from Wufei's arm, carefully unplugging him from the i.v. He let Wufei stand on his own, seeing how his legs shook but letting him do it himself, carefully guiding him into the small attached bathroom and getting him seated on the edge of the tub. He put the shower on, so Wufei could have the best of both worlds and put a block of soap in Wufei's hand and left him to it, carefully explaining there was a towel on the floor just by the bath.

He went to the bridge and sat in the pilot's seat, turning lazily and watching the outer edge of the colony hanging in space. It was an incredible view, one the other colonies didn't get because of the way L1 had been designed. The first colony, focussed more on making sure people were comfortable, and had all the trappings of home along with a few choice things you couldn't get at home. Making people like space, with pretty views and incredible vistas. Convincing them space was a nice place to be, as if space herself hadn't been convincing enough for most.

It had sure convinced the hell out of him, the moment he stepped foot off L2 and got a taste for it, all he'd wanted to do was go again, and again and again. Space called to all of them for different reasons, but for Duo it was freedom from the trappings of mortality. Space didn't care who you were or what you'd done. As soon as you were out there, on your own, everyone was on equal footing and only the silence would decide if you were found wanting.

In space, he was better than people; better than most, and he liked that. He liked that he was better not because of the way he was born or the dollars in his bank account, but because he was hard and deliberate and because space didn't give second chances and he didn't need any. He liked that space judged on merit, and that space judged him worthy.

An hour passed and he went to check on Wufei, because the silence was getting to him. He was stunned to find Wufei washed and tucked back in bed, dressed in...

"Is that my shirt?"

"Your pants too," Wufei agreed and Duo just gaped, not because Wufei had somehow managed to find his way back from the bathroom, raid the closet, dress himself and ensconce himself back in bed because Duo suspected he'd been doing that sort of ninja trick for a while. The shock came from the fact his shirt on Wufei looked like it had come from an obese person, or a pro wrestler, or someone with that reverse anorexia thing where their muscles on muscles always looked puny and insignificant in the mirror. He found himself checking his bicep just to be sure, but nope it was healthy and just the right size to knock Heero Yuy on his ass if required.

"Feel better?"

"Yes." Simple as that. Duo sighed and got the first aid kit off the desk, sitting beside Wufei on the bed and checking his arm first, because Wufei had taken the brace off. It was a dark purple, not that Duo hadn't expected it, but it looked a hell of a lot worse than he would have liked. He slathered some bruise cream on it and wrapped it in gauze, to let it breathe and give it some extra cushioning and then he put the brace back on, hoping it was still straight. Wufei didn't so much as wince the whole time and Duo barely restrained himself from poking the bruise to see if he couldn't make him show pain. If he wanted to pretend he couldn't feel it, who was Duo to argue? Maybe it helped him, somehow.

He went to put the cream on Wufei's eyes but hesitated and put it down yet again, getting up instead and fetching his brush from his own room, coming back and moving Wufei into the middle of the bed so he could slip in behind him.

It was surprising how quickly they both relaxed into it. Duo wasn't going to lie, he'd always had a thing for hair. Ever since he was a child and saw Sister Helen's for the first time, all bright and gleaming in the sunlight he'd known he loved it. He'd grown his as a sign of respect, but that didn't mean he didn't think it was the greatest thing ever at the same time, and he took a lot of care with it. It was crazy thick and he had a hell of a time snipping off split ends but it was soft and healthy. It felt like wire compared to the slinky silk of Wufei's as it slowly dried. He worked some conditioner in just to get the knots out around the braids, and carefully unwound each, straightening it all out and brushing while it dried.

Wufei collected the beads in his hand and Duo was surprised when he was finished getting the knots out when Wufei held them back out to him. Wanting them put back in.

"They help me see," he admitted softly and Duo just stared at them in Wufei's hand, stunned. He realised when they hung in a particular way they would move and clink together, and that Wufei had memorized the different sounds they made; had somehow integrated that sound into his sense of balance and space. He was very careful in separating the pieces of Wufei's hair, rebraiding the places he'd worked them out of and carefully putting the beads back in. It was tidier and neater and Wufei shook his head experimentally and nodded in thanks, so Duo assumed he'd gotten it right. He ran a hand over Wufei's hair one last time and let it go, having no more excuse to sit there playing with it like a five year old.

"Thank you," Wufei said softly and Duo just squeezed his shoulder, all too well aware how crap dirty, untamed hair made you feel.

The cream went back on Wufei's eyes then, and the pads and the bandage but it no longer looked completely ridiculous. When Duo sat back and examined his handiwork he could only marvel that he'd somehow made it look...sexy. Bandages, in his opinion, were kind of hot anyway, if you ignored what they were for, but it was the colours that did it in Wufei's case, the white of the linen and skin stark against the jet black of Wufei's hair hanging loose and free now around his shoulders and down his chest.

That ache in his chest returned and Duo busied himself packing the first aid kit up again, and hooking Wufei back up to the fluids. He was getting ready to say something, anything really, when the proximity alarm went off, startling Wufei hard and Duo was on his feet and out the door before he'd had time to register anything besides 'danger'.

Someone was at the cargo door, staring impatiently up at the ship. Duo stared at the screen for a long time before he woke up enough to reach out and turn the damn alarm off. And then he just stared some more, because is brain needed a moment.

It wasn't coincidence, of that he had no doubt. He shook his head and went to let her in, watching the way she grinned and swept that god-awful red beret off her head and swept it into a ridiculously looking bow. He closed the cargo bay doors and just stood there, arms folded and glaring at her.

"Well, this is...awkward," Hilde said at last and Duo just snorted, shaking his head and cursing under his breath as he opened the door out of the cargo bay. She looked...good. Taller, slimmer but muscled in all the right places. Her hair was still cropped short, but she'd streaked it with some kind of colourant, making it paler and look...he stopped looking her up and down and went back to glaring.

"Don't flatter yourself, Maxwell, I'm not here for you."

That made him pause and he turned to look at her properly, demanding an explanation with his glare alone. The same glare that had made soldiers in the war piss themselves in their nightmares.

"I'm here for Wufei," she grinned and before he could do anything, she skipped through the spare room doorway and was chattering away to the invalid. Duo just stood there, staring with wide eyes and giving his brain time to do the math but he didn't like any of the things it came up with.

"Fucking bastard really has thought of everything," he muttered, and wished he knew what that even meant.


	8. Chapter 8

8:

He had just enough control to wait until he had permission to leave, had run his pre-flight checks, had launched and was back in open space with a course plotted and recorded before he stormed back in to find out just what the hell she was doing on his ship.

"Technically," she pointed out before he even got his mouth open. "It's not your ship." He froze, mouth agape, words gone and brain firing off too many thoughts at once for him to safely settle on one. She smirked and he slammed his mouth shut, eyeing her dubiously. The annoying thing was, he trusted Hilde. He didn't think she was up to no good, knew she wouldn't screw him over and even relied on her every now and then to help him out with work between L2 and L1, since she decided to move to L1 a few years back when it became clear he wasn't that interested in going into business together.

"What are you doing here?"

"I work in a Haze rehab clinic. I would have thought the reason for my presence here was obvious."

"You...what?" Since when? Duo went and sat down at the desk, having a feeling this conversation was going to leave his brain hurting. Wufei already looked amused, and he didn't even have that many expressions he could make with only half his face visible.

"Who told you I was here?"

Hilde looked him up and down then, looking nervous for the first time since she came aboard and Duo slunk down in his chair, because her silence said everything, really.

"You...didn't mail me."

"Nope." But he had a pretty damn good idea who had, and he was insulted that Trowa had thought he could forge an email with Duo's name, and that Hilde had fallen for it. He thought he had taught her better than that, but he supposed they weren't in a war anymore and you didn't expect your friends friends to forge things...If, of course, Trowa could still be called their friend. Looking around the room, it was fifty fifty either way.

"Well. Your mail told me you needed help to get Wufei off Haze, which I admit I thought was a bad joke until you sent a second mail with pick up details and a very tight time frame." She shrugged, looking from Wufei to Duo and back again. "He really is on Haze..."

"No shit," Duo rolled his eyes but he was thinking through the facts, trying to find cause and effect and failing. He really wished Trowa had left clearer instructions, because none of this made any goddamned sense.

"Since when do you work in a rehab clinic?"

"Since my cousin got hooked on Haze and I had to help her out around the house while she did rehab?" Hilde shrugged as if it were common knowledge. Maybe it was, but Duo hadn't known and guilt sat heavy in his throat, limiting his words.

"It's just volunteer work on the weekends and the occasional night shift when they get a newbie in and they need extra eyes in the first stage?" She studied Wufei then, reaching out to touch his neck and apologising when Wufei recoiled harshly at the unexpected touch.

"Sorry, sorry, it's just...you seem to be through the first stage already?" She looked to Duo for confirmation but all he could do was shrug because he knew little about the process other than what he'd read and Wufei was pretty damn good at hiding things anyway so who really knew?

"I'm fine," Wufei grumbled, clearly uncomfortable with Trowa sending him a babysitter. Duo thought it was sort of...cute. In a weird, Trowa Barton kind of way, because only Trowa would ever think Wufei, of all people, needed a babysitter. Though, he had needed a rescue team so maybe Trowa just knew things the rest of them didn't. Like...everything.

"He says that when the sheets are that colour," Duo noted softly and he saw Hilde wince. "Yeah, they weren't always dark purple, but you know, blue and red makes..."

"That's just gross," Hilde snapped and her beret flew into Duo's face. Unrepentant, he just pulled it off and tossed it back at her. He was a little hurt, if he was honest, that Trowa hadn't trusted him to care for Wufei. That he'd gone and arranged a damn carer. He'd been doing just fine! Wufei was already through stage 1 for crying out loud!

Unless, of course, Duo was going to be needed to do something else, and someone was going to have to stay with Wufei? That could make sense, but Duo had no idea what he was going to be needed for, that Heero couldn't do, and he was willing to bet Mariemaia would have paid money to stay by Wufei's bedside and nurse him back to health.

"What's your day job? You know, when you're not volunteering?"

"I'm a runner?" Runner, Duo forced his brain to acknowledge. Not trafficker. "Pharmaceuticals? They're manufactured here, so it's a good launch port, and a lot of it goes to L2, so …" So it was a job she enjoyed, because the people who needed it most were getting help, and she liked being a part of that.

"Pharmaceuticals?" Duo questioned immediately. "What kind?"

"The legal kind!" Hilde snapped in reply. He couldn't blame her, his brain had gone there.

"Ceuron?" Wufei asked softly and it shocked them both enough that they just stared at him, but he was waiting for a reply and he couldn't see Hilde nodding.

"Yeah...a few other brands but most our products are from Ceuron Pharmaceuticals. How did you know that?" She seemed disturbed by it, when Duo really thought she should have been expecting it. She'd been away from Gundam Pilots a little too long.

"Ceuron is owned primarily by Georgio Sahar," Wufei noted softly and that made a lot more sense than Duo's other ideas about Hilde's presence.

"The man who just sold you owned the company Hilde works for..." How did that help them? Wufei just shrugged, because that was all he knew on the matter, or all he could remember for the moment, or some other mysterious reason of his own like maybe he just liked shrugging. Duo didn't care, the shrug didn't answer his questions.

"That's weird," Hilde observed.

"No, really?" Honestly, what was with everyone stating the obvious. It annoyed the hell out of him. But they were doing it deliberately and her grin just pissed him off. He wanted answers, and the longer he went without them the more he just wanted to punch Trowa Barton in the gonads. Hard. With steel capped boots.

"You know my boss?" Hilde was asking and Duo just watched Wufei's mouth, that being the only real source of expression he had. That, and his hands which flinched but remained steady. His lips parted and Duo was almost sure he panted, sucking at the air a moment before his mouth closed and his jaw bulged, teeth grinding.

"I do," Wufei agreed, but he didn't tell her anything more than that and Duo couldn't blame him. How did you tell someone that you were discussing the man who had owned you? Who had sold you? Who had done...Duo didn't want to think about what the man had done, or not done. Wufei could tell his therapist about it someday, if he decided he needed to talk, but he was confident Wufei would never choose to talk to him about it.

"And...you don't like him," Hilde reasoned from the looks on both their faces.

"No," Wufei agreed and it was clear he didn't want to say any more on the matter.

"You know, your boyfriend is a pain in the ass," Duo grumbled and he got up and left them alone, going to the bridge to make sure they were on course, check their likely arrival time and then it was time for a nap so he could process the latest weird turn of events.

The problem was the whole thing was weird, and Duo wasn't all that fond of weird. He liked things to be in your face, up front and clear cut, in and out and over with. He liked to work alone because he knew all the variables and didn't have to trust someone else to pull their half of the weight. If you only had to trust yourself, life was a lot easier. When Heero was involved it was still pretty simple, you just had to watch your back in case the asshole decided to take you out of the picture and do everything himself, not that Duo could really blame him because they both knew things were easier to do solo. With Quatre they were just complicated because you were never sure if the guy would hug you for doing something or lecture you, and no one in their right mind wanted a lecture from Quatre Winner. The only person who gave a more fearsome tirade was Wufei, and he was another of the let me go solo kind of guys, so it wasn't usually that hard to avoid one of his mega rants. Unless you did something really, epically stupid and Duo had stopped adding epic to his stupid stunts after about seventeen.

But Trowa. Why did everything that man touched end up being weird? First, he had a Gundam that wasn't even evenly weighted; the damn thing damn near toppled to the side or flopped at the belly if you didn't know how to handle the weight distribution just so. That's just not a feasible way to fight! It was weird! Then there was the way the guy didn't really give you answers to anything, just these strange looks with one eye, as if he'd said something and you just missed it, and then you felt bad about not listening and couldn't ask what he'd said when really he hadn't said anything to begin with. Infuriating, and weird! And then he goes and shacks up with the richest guy in the universe, who by all accounts is his best friend and he adores as much as he adores breathing, but has trouble getting a hard on unless Chang Wufei, of all people, comes within telescopic sight and so he goes off and has an affair, and none of them seem to have a care in the world about the weird threeway going on between them. It was downright weird!

And then, the weirdest part of all. The way Trowa liked to do missions. He didn't like to infiltrate the enemy base, maybe lay down some charges, flee and watch the fireworks. No, Trowa liked to become the enemy, to make them his friends, then shoot the crap out of them and be the fireworks. And this mission in particular, if you could even call it a mission, though Trowa had likely dubbed it 'Mission save my Lover and bring down all the Evils of the World Attempt Number 1'. Or something to that effect.

Wufei finds himself with time on his hands and chases up a lead on a drug trafficker he, for whatever reason, didn't arrest. They go to Mettle Valley together, because going to the most dangerous place in the universe is what you do when you're feeling butthurt and heartbroken, and accumulate a ridiculous amount of information on the heads of the human trafficking industry. Enough to destroy it, once and for all. But before completing their investigation, Wufei is captured by the enemy, drugged with Haze and put to work in the very industry he'd trying to put an end to. That part of it wasn't all that weird, apart from the bit where Wufei had likely been a sex slave. Maybe. Duo still didn't want to think about that.

The weird part was where Wufei had, for some unfathomable reason, contacted Mariemaia Kushrenada and had long, lengthy conversations with her. Wufei hadn't been in the habit of having deep and meaningfuls with pubescent girls the last time Duo had seen him, and they'd been teenagers then, so the idea of him taking it up as a hobby in adulthood was...weird! And it seemed Trowa knew about it? That wasn't helping any of them sound any saner. So Trowa tracks Wufei down, gets as far as Mettle Valley and realises Wufei's been sold, and the only way to find out who to is to get into the drug business? Duo didn't see how that was in any way a logical conclusion, but it was what he'd done. And in typical Trowa Barton style the guy becomes Kingpin of the drug overlords and finally tracks Wufei down to the ownership of one Georgio Sahar, but he can't just go off and rescue him, because for some reason he's not in the Valley. So he has Mariemaia agree to go buy Wufei at auction, telling her to take Heero as a bodyguard, promising they won't be imprisoned upon their return to Earth, and he has Marie send Howard the file he compiled to trick Duo into going after them, knowing full well Duo wouldn't be able to resist arresting Heero Yuy, Hero of the World. How had he known that anyway? Duo hadn't been having a mad three way relationship for everyone to gawk at. And then, once bought, Trowa somehow knows Duo will make a gun run to L1 and arranges for Hilde to get one board?

That part wasn't just weird. It made no logical sense at all, which meant it was wrong. He couldn't have known Duo would make a cover as a gunrunner, even if Mariemaia had known, hinting that Trowa had also known. He couldn't have known Duo would make a gun run to L1...unless he put in the order for the guns. The place he'd delivered it to had been pretty standard, and looked like they would be headed to a military facility on one of the other colonies. It hadn't looked like a bluff, but he hadn't been looking for signs that it might be a coverup for something else. Or, nothing at all?

And how had he known Hilde volunteered at a Haze rehab clinic, and that she would be on L1, and that she was a runner for a pharmaceuticals company partly, or mostly owned by the man who had caught and owned Wufei? Had Trowa and Hilde been friends? Duo barely spoke to Hilde anymore, he just couldn't imagine any of the others actually maintaining a friendship he himself hadn't bothered with, either because he hadn't had time or he hadn't felt obligated, it didn't even matter now. He couldn't see them getting along that well, anyway. Hilde preferred up front and honest, and those weren't exactly traits Trowa was good with.

Weird didn't begin to cover it. And Duo plain didn't like weird. He contemplated painting Trowa's face on his ceiling and practising his aim but drifted off to sleep before he could actually do it. He dreamt he was in a bar with Trowa and for every shot he drank he got to deck the guy. It was the best dream he'd had in a long time.

Thinking things through the night before had served to do little more than keep him up and leave him annoyed. Duo didn't shower, needing to re-filth before entry back into Mettle Valley, and he was going to need to dirty up Hilde as well. Maybe Wufei, but he didn't want to risk giving him some kind of illness until he was sure the man could at least function on his own. He did wash his face and then went to see what Hilde was doing.

Cooking, was not something that had come to mind. Last he knew, Hilde couldn't. Cook. He eyed whatever she had on the bench, mixing, dubiously and she just glared at him but after that bout of food poisoning she'd given him he didn't think she had any right to object to him questioning what she was doing.

"I took lessons, okay?" She grumbled at last. "Figured I nearly killed you, the least I could do was learn to do it right and someday cook you something that didn't leave you bedridden for a week."

"I had cramps for months," Duo ground out, but he had to admit it did smell good. He moved in closer and peeked in the bowl, surprised.

"Pancake batter?" That was the grand sum of her culinary lessons? But then, he hadn't had a lot of ingredients on board either.

"I figured everyone eats pancakes..."

"Heero doesn't," Duo frowned, wondering how he even remembered that, or why since it was the most useless piece of information ever. Give the man creme brule and he was fine, give him pancakes and he damn near choked. He made no sense at all to Duo.

"There's no cream, but you've got syrup in the cupboard." Duo fetched it obediently and got out plates, leaving her to the cooking because she did actually seem to be handling it and if something went wrong and sprinklers would take care of it.

Wufei was curled up in the far corner of the bed, cradling his injured arm and close to where the i.v was hooked up. The bag was almost empty so Duo changed it over while he stole glances at Wufei while he was asleep. He breathed through his nose, a wartime habit that didn't fade, mouth firmly closed so it couldn't make any noise. His chest rose in a slightly erratic pattern and his skin was still sweating pink, though it was less. Hilde had lain towels under him to absorb it, but even she hadn't changed the sheets. Another day and it should be fine.

It was his hands, ironically, that gave him away. His fingertips twitched in his sleep, fingers rolled into fists, wrung themselves out, twisted, twined, desperately grabbing at things that weren't there to grab. Nightmares, Duo recognised immediately and he moved in fast, squeezing Wufei's shoulder just light enough to wake him, and hard enough to hold him still if he woke swinging.

There were no punches, but Wufei stopped breathing for a moment and Duo knew he was awake, listening and then all the air left him in a rush and he started again. Breathing. In and out, slow and easy, deliberately so.

"Duo?"

"You were dreaming."

"I know," Wufei chuckled, sounding hoarse and tired. Duo got water from the desk and put the bottle in Wufei's hand, watching him drink it down greedily before putting it back. He didn't want to talk about it, and Duo didn't ask, not wanting to hear about it. They each had their own nightmares to live with, Wufei likely more than most now. They were things they had to deal with alone, or with a professional, which he most definitely wasn't.

"Hilde's making pancakes..."

"She said something about cooking. I...remember you being ill once?" Wufei actually looked nervous and Duo laughed hard, delighted, because it was almost like they shared an inside joke, something he never would have thought he had with Wufei.

"Yeah. I got those cramps for weeks, it was horrible! But she claims to have taken some lessons, so we can only hope she's either better or burns out the kitchen before getting anything on the plate."

"I heard that!" She raged from the mess and Duo just grinned, unrepentant because Wufei was smiling, a brief but still present thing.

"How are you feeling?" It was very likely a stupid question, but one Duo felt he also needed an answer to.

Wufei just shrugged and Duo watched as he did their old wartime routine of very slowly cataloguing everything, testing each limb, focussing on anything wrong, deciding how bad it was. It was damn strange to see someone do it now, and it was a wake up call because it meant Wufei, on some level, still considered himself at war. Which made sense when Duo actually thought about it, but was still a shock.

"I'm fine," Wufei summarised and Duo just snorted because Wufei was many things but he didn't think fine was really among them. Delusional, maybe.

"How are you still...you?" He hadn't meant to ask it, but once there it hung between them and Duo could see it was a question Wufei had been expecting but didn't particularly want to answer. He reached up with his good hand and stroked the beads in his hair, letting them tinkle against each other, just listening. Duo just watched and waited because if Wufei needed time, Duo could at least give him that. But he did want to know the answer, it being of the things on his long list of 'weird'.

"Haze is...a strange drug. Instead of trying to dull your nervous system to make you feel good, it overloads it by making it feel bad. It's fire and agony and the more doses it just gets worse, until finally something in you just snaps and you lose the battle. You lose yourself and you exist in this haze that you don't want to come out of because if you do..." The pain was there, waiting. Which was why rehab hurt so much, the nervous system re-awoke and demanded your attention all over again. After losing the battle against that pain once, it wasn't any wonder that so many eventually gave up and died instead of living through it a second time.

But Wufei hadn't lost himself, Duo realised. Had just stayed in that no man's land of pain, struggling against the drug, refusing to let it beat him.

"I just...accepted it," Wufei acknowledged. "Let it become 'normal'. Embraced it as the core of who I was, knowing full well if I let it go for a even a moment I would become..." Like all the rest. And the way he floated somewhere in his own shell had certainly given the illusion he'd given in, but somewhere deep inside Wufei had still been Wufei, raging against the fire.

"That's...not normal," Duo muttered, remembering the girl in the whore house and the way she had slipped in and out. Maybe it had been a side effect of the drug wearing off, that moment of lucidity where she was able to feel again, however briefly, and remember, or maybe she had been like Wufei and fought for as long as she could before slipping away completely and they'd simply found her in those last few moments before she gave it up entirely. Duo didn't know, and couldn't bring himself to think about her, because he hadn't been able to take her from there, or give her a chance to find herself again and the solution he had granted her had been the best one available to him at the time. He didn't want to know if there had been another way.

"So when you say you're fine, I really shouldn't believe you at all," Duo surmised and Wufei frowned darkly at him, mouth a hard line on his face. It just made Duo grin, patting Wufei on the shoulder and then letting his hand slide down Wufei's broken arm to check on it. He cleaned the broken limb, put some more balm on it and rebandaged it before putting the hard cast back on, and ignored the way Wufei just looked in his direction without actually looking. Just his head turned as if he could see through the bandages and it creeped Duo out.

"I really am okay, Maxwell. This is the best I've felt in...a very long time."

That didn't do a lot to make Duo feel any better, because Wufei shouldn't have to feel that shit to begin with. Duo had just been a shit friend, and hadn't even realised it. Had wanted to think it was the others, that it was their responsibility to call him and when they hadn't he'd felt justified in ignoring them back. But maybe they'd just been waiting for an invitation and he'd simply never offered?

"Yeah well, I'm not throwing a welcome back to life party until I know there won't be a thousand get well soon parties before it."

"Please. No parties," Wufei chuckled and Duo just felt bad, because he didn't think any of them threw parties, at least not that he knew of. Except Quatre but those dinner things he had did not count. At all. The odd birthday here and there would have been nice. Would have been normal. And those required invitations, right? Invitations bridged gaps... He wasn't sure anyone besides Quatre even knew when their birthday was, which was odd in itself.

"Pancakes?" Hilde interrupted, and Duo had to give her credit. He suspected she had been standing in the hallway, waiting for a good opportunity to break the quiet and she'd chosen her time well. She'd also managed not to blow the ship up, light the kitchen on fire, or just present charcoal on a plate. The pancakes were hot and creamy and delicious and he ate loudly and enthusiastically so she knew he was impressed.

But when he was full, and Wufei was buckling under the pressure of what was under his skin he left Hilde to deal with it and went to fly the ship, aware in the back of his mind that they were getting close and he would have to prepare for docking in a few hours.

A smooth run. Old Duke would be happy, but Duo was already worrying over what Old Duke might throw at him next. The best he could tell, Trowa had gotten in way over his head and Duo didn't want to do the same. It could happen too easily, and once you were that far in there wasn't a place to hide in the universe where someone couldn't find you and make sure you didn't blab and Valley's secrets to the wrong person.

Hilde came in an hour later and sat heavily in the co-pilot's seat and just spun lazily, a habit she had picked up from him. It made Duo smile, because maybe he hadn't ignored everyone after all, and maybe the impressions he'd left on people weren't all bad.

"He okay?"

"He thinks he is," Hilde snorted but she was shaking her head and she looked tired. "Who knows. Give it a month and we'll see."

Duo nodded, checking the distances and running through the few things left to do before then. There wasn't a lot, the Valley was pretty simplistic in its docking procedure. Very archaic. Just keep your ship pressurized, connect and open. Do not open your ship to open space and everyone would be fine. Easy.

"Are you okay?"

The question surprised them both and Duo wasn't even sure why he asked it. He found himself staring at her, watching her blink at him while she thought about it and then she just grinned and nodded.

"You know how it is. I make ends meet just fine. Been finding family and making friends, just...living life, you know?" Living it, instead of just trying to live. That had to be good, but the way she said it, with that small but bright smile made something in Duo pause, because he knew he hadn't been doing the same.

"Yeah..." He didn't know at all. He was still just trying to live, taking it a day at a time, a gig a piece and if he lived to see the next day doing it over again. Taking risks that weren't necessary, daring something to outdo him. And he couldn't begin to say why he'd stayed on that course.

Only he did know.

"I've talked to Howard a few times."

"Whaaaat?" Duo fish-faced at her, mouth moving and inarticulate sound erupting. "Does he have some weird post-war harem I'm unaware of or something?"

She laughed but he was still unnerved by it. Howard was the closest thing he had to family and it hurt that there were apparently a few things he'd chosen to keep from him. Not that Duo had been in any frame of mind to listen, or would have shown any sign of caring if Howard had told him, but it still stung, in that place Duo tried not to think about.

"The first time, I just needed a reference. His name carries a lot of weight in the business, you know?"

Of course Duo knew, it was why he'd stuck to Howard after the war, but a lot of Howard's post-war reputation was directly linked to Duo's part in their operations. Take the Gig. The risks are irrelevant. Just do the Gig. Howard's Sweepers can do anything, you need something done ask a Sweeper. It felt a little weird that Hilde had gotten a recommendation from a man who owed his reputation to Duo's hard work. Not that he minded, it was just...weird. And he had a thing against weird things these days.

"That was smart," he managed to acknowledge and she was smiling as if it was a normal response. As if Duo regularly told people their decisions were intelligent. Not.

"But after that, I tried to just have a chat."

"You tried to chat up the old man?" That was just gross.

"No, I tried to call you, you jackass!" She was laughing at him this time, and somehow that was better. "But you were never there, so I'd just ask Howard if you were doing okay. He always said you were fine..."

He sighed, sitting back in his chair and staring out at space, wondering how it could be so massive and yet people from his past could still manage to find him and have awkward conversations.

"I'm fine, Hilde." Better than fine, he was healthy and rich and fully employed. What more could you ask for?

"Funny," she murmured, looking at him a little too closely. "That's what Wufei keeps saying." And they both knew that was complete crap.


	9. Chapter 9

9:

Mettle Valley had lost some of its grit and grime, to Duo's eyes. Maybe it was exposure, maybe it was just the effect of a decent shower being scrubbed off in the cargo bay as he dirtied himself back into the right frame of mind with grease and grime, dallying with a decent dirt fight against Hilde that left her so filthy she had to wash her hands before she could go anywhere near Wufei again. But it just didn't seem as bad. Maybe he'd seen it all, or maybe he just liked living in an illusion of his own design, it didn't really matter either way. What mattered was the small quake of fear and excitement he'd felt last time was gone, replaced with cold, hard reality. Duo hated this place. He wanted to blow it out of existence, and had already calculated just how much explosive would be required.

"Stop imagining blowing up the station. It's already happened once, it doesn't deserve another go."

"Then someone should have done it right the first time," Duo growled, but he let her sit down in the co-pilots chair again and strap in while he went through the docking procedure.

"You should be careful what you say about the Valley."

"More superstitious bull? I didn't think you were the type." But he was busy, pulling the thrusters in and using shorter bursts to maneuver into a free berth, closer to Heero's ship, which he was glad to see was right where he'd left it.

"Have you even stopped to think that maybe Wufei didn't come to the Valley to fight crime and save fair maidens, but because it was L5?" She sounded incredulous, as if she couldn't fathom how he was that stupid, but the tone of voice only made Duo feel even more ridiculous. Because he hadn't thought of that. Not for even a moment. But knowing Wufei, that had certainly had something to do with it. Life is screwed up and got nowhere to go? Go home, even if it's the last place in the universe anyone should go if they're in their right mind. Duo wasn't sure Wufei even had a 'right' mind. The guy had always seemed pretty unstable. And angry...Duo had suggested management classes at some point, but the man had just clocked him.

"You didn't even think of that?" She looked angry and Duo frowned because none of this was his fault, and he didn't deserve her being angry at him. In his opinion. "What is wrong with you? Is this still that bullshit with Yuy and the Incident?"

The Incident. Why did everyone call it that. Not the War, not the Uprising, not the Rebellion. The Incident. Like it was just another everyday occurrence that just happened to nearly destroy everything they had fought for. That had destroyed Duo's little dream of a happy ending. Not that he wasn't happy now, it was just not what he'd wanted at the time. The Incident didn't explain the feeling of betrayal when Wufei took a shot at Heero. It didn't explain the confusion seeing Trowa on the wrong side. It didn't portray the heartache of waking alone in that hospital because the world had to have what the world needed and the people who won that peace got nada.

"Oh God, it is...for fuck's sake Duo Maxwell, grow the hell up!"

He just stared at her, but she was so not done and he sank lower in his seat while he drew them into their berth and set about connecting the ship and she just stood there, bellowing at him.

"You think your life is oh so fucking hard because you got left in a hospital bed without some fucking flowers? Boo fucking Hoo! Wufei has been chained to some bastard's bed for years in agony and he's sitting in there with a damn smile on his face! I've been stuck in clinic after clinic, watching thousands die just trying to undo what some greedy prick has done to them, knowing full well that even if they recover they're never going to be right in the head again. My cousin sits by a window and drools all day, and cries in her sleep all night, but she doesn't even remember her own damn name. Heero has been trailing Relena and having no damn life at all, trying to keep you out of it because they're trying to put a stop to something he knows can't be stopped, and he knows how much the very thought of trafficking upsets you! And you want to complain because people gave you some god-damned space? Get your head out of your fucking ass, or I'll shove it so far up there it'll come back out your fucking neck!"

She stormed off the bridge, leaving Duo staring at space, the ship docked and his head reeling. Hilde had always had a way of telling him what was what, but that was new even for her. She seemed...stressed. He toyed with the ends of his braid, making himself actually focus on what she'd said because while there had been a lot of anger and frustration in it, there had also been a few choice bits of information.

Like the fact Hilde was apparently in contact with Heero, of all people. Like they were friends. And that Heero was helping Relena, maybe, because of him? It was so similar to what Heero himself had said that it had to have at least a grain of truth in it, even if it made no sense at all. Or he just didn't want it to make any sense at all, because then he would have to start watching his ass, just in case Hilde took offense to it.

Worse, Hilde had been having a hard time of it, and Duo hadn't even known. Not because she hadn't told him because that wasn't the way it worked. He hadn't asked. Hadn't so much as picked up a phone to check on her. Or Wufei, or Heero, or Quatre, or the damn Kingpin Trowa. Apparently all he needed to say was 'oh gee, I wonder how the guys are going' in Howard's presence and he could have told him the latest on all of them, but he hadn't. Not even Howard had dared try to tell him what he didn't want to hear.

So maybe he had some bridges to mend. He could accept that. It wouldn't be fun, but it was doable. But she really didn't need to lose her head at him like that, so he stayed on the bridge sulking for an hour longer than he had originally intended, and this time he was more than happy to admit he was sulking.

"I need to go out. I shouldn't be longer than an hour." They barely looked up to acknowledge him and Duo left them to it, trusting them not to do anything stupid like try and leave the ship before they discussed as a group just how they were going to go about that. Or, at the very least he trusted Hilde not to do anything stupid, and he knew first hand she could tie a knot even Wufei wouldn't be getting out of.

He went straight to the gun runners, in a roundabout way just in case, though no one followed him or really paid him any attention at all. Old Duke was delighted to take the money card off Duo's hands and Duo was more than happy to give it up. He took his cut with a delighted grin and a little more thanks than was necessary and Duke agreed to get him another job asap. As criminal gig's went, Duo suspected it was one of the easiest in history, but he wasn't stupid enough to think they were all like that.

Satisfied his cover was once again re established, he headed for Heero's ship, once again taking a roundabout way, noticing a few eyes turning his way curiously but for the most part passing by invisibly. No alarms went off to indicate he'd hit anything, but Heero was waiting for him by one of the external hatches when he dropped through it and all Duo could do was grin.

"Welcome back."

"I would say I'm glad to be back, but...I'm not." He shrugged and Heero just shook his head. Duo could have sworn he rolled his eyes but Heero moved quickly, leading the way to the bridge and taking a seat.

"You've been doing some decorating," Duo whistled low under his breath, looking around at the mind map Heero had been making on the wall. Small clues from the folder, but new pieces of information too. Images, names, locations, coordinates, values, amounts...there was a lot plastered on the wall that Duo couldn't make add up without knowing exactly what it was for, but it was obvious Heero was using the same technique Wufei had been. Maybe trying to pick up where Wufei had left off in an effort to figure out where Trowa was.

"Mind maps were never your style," he observed softly.

"Still aren't," Heero agreed. "Marie likes them."

"It disturbs me that you're using a teenager to help you plan things."

"We were teenagers once too," Heero pointed out, but he was smiling now, amused and Duo just folded his arms across his chest because he didn't want to be Heero's amusement for the day.

"What exactly are you planning?"

"Nothing in particular, just trying to trace steps." Wufei's, Trowa's, Heero didn't seem fussed. He just wanted answers and Duo could more than understand that.

"Do you find this whole thing a bit...weird? I mean, it's Trowa, right? So it's weird?"

"You two never really did get along," Heero chuckled. "Too much alike."

"The hell? I am nothing like Trowa Barton!" That would make him weird, and he was not! He spun his chair lazily, glaring at Heero every time his face came back into view.

"It's weird," Heero acknowledged at last. "But I don't think we think so for the same reasons." And he was laughing, soft and a little self deprecating but laughing nonetheless. Duo just stared, aware it had been a very long time since he had really stopped and listen to that sound. It had been rare, back then, and he couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't changed either, or if Heero maybe laughed for other people now.

"Happy to entertain," Duo grumbled, but he was pleased by it, and that just made him feel stupid. He should not have been happy to have Heero laughing at him.

"You always entertain," Heero agreed softly, sounding more serious than the words would have suggested. "If not how you at first assume."

That had him stumped, and for a while all Duo could do was stare, reminded of Hilde's rant and the quiet promises he was trying not to make himself.

"How's Wufei?" It was the note of genuine curiosity and concern in Heero's voice that really set Duo's nerves on fire and he sighed, shrugging a little because he honestly didn't know the answer.

"Says he's fine." And they all knew he wasn't, so there wasn't a whole lot of point to listening to the guy until he realised they could see straight through him and started speaking truth. But the likelihood of that ever happening was so slim Duo saw no point in entertaining the thought. Heero was nodding, and Duo didn't need to ask to know he agreed.

"Keep an eye on him."

"Don't need to," Duo muttered and it sounded darker than he had meant it to. It certainly got Heero's attention and he sighed, shrugging and trying to explain. "Trowa apparently arranged for Hilde to hitch a ride with me from L1. Hilde who also just happens to work part time in a Haze rehab facility."

"And transports Ceuron drugs?"

"As a day job? Yeah. Sometimes. How did you know that?" Duo eyed Heero dubiously, not entirely unconvinced the guy wasn't at least part robot. It would have explained a lot of things. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

Heero was sitting forward, running a hand through his hair and looking into the distance at nothing at all. Duo knew it for a sign he was thinking, and thinking hard, which usually meant Heero knew something he didn't and was just trying to put the pieces together before Duo figured it out. To get one up on him, or something. It pissed Duo the hell off, but he wasn't completely stupid.

"I think I know how Trowa runs his business, and I think I know why he's doing it."

There was a reason? That should be good! Duo just sat, expectantly, because at that point nothing would surprise him. Heero just sighed, but if he'd expected a verbal response he really should have known better. Duo was flaming pissed at Trowa, and until someone gave him a damn good reason to be otherwise he was going to stay that way.

"He's using the circus." Heero pulled out a flyer that clearly had a photo of Catherine tossing knives. At Trowa, in a very updated version of his clown outfit. He didn't look all that funny anymore, in Duo's opinion.

The mask was what he noticed most, because it stood out against the tight black of his new costume. The purple star and red lips were gone, a thing of the past left to draw their attention to what was going on. But it had been replaced with an ornate harlequin mask that still took up half his face but looked expensive and dangerous. It was black instead of white, with bright red accents that looked as if the face had been painted on in blood, and intrinsically wound through it all was a gold chinese dragon. Trowa's hair hung around it in soft, dark waves, looking gentle, at odds with the one green eye that glared out between his bangs. Trowa looked furious, in the way Heero had once looked furious, struggling to maintain a cold mask while underneath everything raged. Duo knew the expression too well not to see it.

"Telling me he's using the closest thing he has to a family to traffick drugs isn't helping my opinion of him any," Duo mumbled, but he couldn't pull his gaze away from the image in his hands. If he'd been asked to draw a thousand versions of what he thought Trowa might be in the future, this would not have been among them. This reminded him more of the spider-clown in IT coming out to devour small children in suburbia than of the sweet hearted silent barrier standing between conglomerate businesses and the latest endangered species. This wasn't the man who had up and left the Winner residence over an argument in defence of dolphins.

Which meant either the image was a lie, or the dolphin sham was a cover. He already knew it was; had known the moment Heero said it. Trowa Barton might not be in love with Quatre Winner, but he loved him just as fiercely as he wanted Wufei, of that Duo was certain. The whole thing had reeked of a cover, Duo just hadn't wanted to believe it because everything about it made him mad. Just like Trowa had known it would.

Just like the image did, because whatever Trowa was doing it was destroying him and he didn't even seem to care. Had thrown himself into it willingly, and taken his family in with him, because he hadn't been able to trust Duo to do the same. Had needed to use trickery and mystery just to get Duo to take a look. He'd had to fool all of them to even make them consider putting a hand into shark infested waters to maybe help him.

And that hurt. It made Hilde's words sink that little further into his blackened, burnt heart and breathe a little more life.

"Circuses are inspected once a year for possible violations, but otherwise don't have to do customs like everyone else. It's not financially viable for them to have to pay the fees every time they change colony, so they get a yearly fee and investigation and otherwise move freely between."

Duo hadn't known that. He knew some organizations got around it like that, but he hadn't known circuses were among them. He had no idea what politician had thought it would be okay to give Carnies, of all people, free reign across boundaries. They weren't exactly the most savoury characters, far as he knew.

Unfortunately, it was very likely the businessman or men who had authorized it knew damn well what they were doing. In the end Duo just sighed and finally looked away from the poster and back to Heero.

"Let me guess. That law was pushed through by Georgio Sahar." Which was how Trowa had known where to start looking. He knew it had it, because Heero just smiled wanly and shrugged. Duo sank lower in his chair and put the poster over the ship's controls, where he could still see Trowa's one good eye staring at him from the corner of his own.

"That's a how," he pointed out at last. "Not a why."

"Quatre." Was all Heero said. And it explained nothing at all. Heero just sighed and ran a confused hand through his hair and Duo knew talking about it was hard; that Heero was still sorting through the facts himself and hadn't actually spoken to anyone about it. He was struggling to get the information into a frame that allowed others to understand. To break it down to the bare basics so Duo wouldn't need to read all the information and decipher what it meant. That would cost them time, and Heero was big on saving time. Liked to take others who might slow him down out of the picture just to save a little of it.

It was hard, pushing the bitterness down.

"Quatre," he prodded and Heero just nodded.

"You're right. It's weird. Trowa would never leave Quatre because of an argument over a dolphin, that's just..."

"Absurd," Duo put in and Heero nodded his head in agreement. Quatre had shot Trowa to hell with the Zero system and left him to die in space and the first thing Trowa had done upon regaining his memory wasn't to go book himself into a psych ward. Nope, he'd run straight back to Quatre's side to make sure the murderous imp was alright. Nothing, especially not a damn endangered species of dolphin, would have taken Trowa from Quatre's side. Wufei, maybe, but Duo had his doubts about that as well.

"You're sure Trowa was sleeping with Wufei?"

"Oh, that one I'm certain about," Duo chuckled darkly. And no way in hell was he ever admitting how he knew it without a doubt.

"Harem's aren't unusual in Quatre's culture," Heero murmured softly and it made Duo laugh, a little incredulous.

"Shouldn't it be Quatre doing the sleeping around then?"

"That's not...I just don't think he'd have as big a problem with it as I originally thought. After thinking about it." And looking at it that way, Duo found he might agree. Quatre didn't seem to have a problem with anything that made Trowa happy. Things that upset Trowa...Quatre had a problem with those.

"So, what? You think Quatre ordered Trowa to become drug Kingpin of the universe and Trowa obediently went and did it, so he could find Wufei?" That didn't make a whole lot of sense, certainly no more sense than the other theories they'd come up with. But Heero was shaking his head.

"I ran a check on Quatre's transactions over the past four years. Since the end of the war he has purchased nineteen subsidiary companies that fall under Ceuron's umbrella. He has a man on the board of twenty seven of Ceuron's other subsidiaries and a share in more than ninety percent of the whole umbrella's shares."

"He's been infiltrating Ceuron?" That changed things. Duo sat up fast and snatched at the printout Heero had made, flicking through the pages and staring at the places Heero had highlighted. Small transactions, compared to the mass of business Quatre did on a daily business. Easy to hide things that seemed to mean nothing even when combed over with a fine tooth comb, unless you knew Wufei had been investigating human trafficking in the Valley at the same time Quatre made that purchase, or placed that man in that particular company at the same time Wufei traced a sale to that branch.

"Wufei was working with Quatre?" It made no sense at all. Why would Quatre work with his lover's lover? Shouldn't he hate Wufei? At least be angry or frustrated with him? Unless of course, as Heero suggested, Quatre didn't actually have a problem with it at all. If maybe the relationship hadn't been Trowa sleeping with Quatre, and Trowa sleeping with Wufei, but rather Trowa sleeping with Quatre and Wufei?

"My brain hurts," Duo muttered, really not wanting to have to think about the sex lives of his friends in that detail. He glared at the circus poster and the eye looking out at him and frowned.

"It makes sense," Heero pointed out sternly and Duo had to agree. It made a lot more sense and explained away a lot of the things he'd been placing under the 'too weird to contemplate' category in his head.

"It still doesn't explain Trowa becoming drug Kingpin."

"Heero pulled up something on the laptop and turned it so Duo could see. A press release, with Quatre grinning and waving happily to the reporters after the announcement had been made. A drug his subsidiary of Ceuron was very happy to finally be releasing after successful trials. Something for Parkinson's. A cure?" Duo read it more seriously, not seeing a correlation at all and looking to Heero for a hand.

"It regenerates cells that produce dopamine that Parkinson's kills. But in a healthy person it has adverse side effects, increasing the number of dopamine cells in the body."

Duo kept reading through the side effects and finally just laughed, sitting back in his chair and howling because he couldn't believe they had done it, and by solving a completely separate issue at that.

"It's a cure for Haze," Duo spoke it out loud, just testing it. He didn't want to believe it, didn't want to get his hopes up. Because if you couldn't have docile slaves the industry would change damn fast. If your slave suddenly starting fighting back, you would have trouble on your hands.

"Not so much a cure, it won't reverse damage done, but it will stop Haze having an effect," Heero agreed. Effectively giving an addict their life back, Duo knew. It also looked suspiciously just like the tablets of Haze that were ground down and brewed into the concoction they injected into victims.

Too much alike.

"They're going to distribute it as Haze," Duo realised, staring at the laptop with wide eyes and clutching the collection of Quatre's transactions so hard in his hand the paper was crumpling and he didn't care.

Worse, they had brought him in on it at the last possible moment, making sure it was going to work, that it was all going to happen before letting him have a small taste of the victory. They had to have been working at it for years. He thought of Wufei, or curling up on the bridge of the Reincarnation and hiding his tears against his knees while Wufei screamed in agony in the next room, unable to do a thing. He imagined what those years had cost Wufei, and Trowa and even Quatre to a degree, and he knew they had done it alone. Not even because Duo wouldn't have believed them or trusted them to pull it off. But because they hadn't wanted him to feel the pain while they tried.

They'd been sparing his feelings. Shielding him.

He thought of Heero then, and waking up in the hospital and the loneliness that had devoured him. He'd been so caught up in his own sense of betrayal when he saw Heero on the television that he hadn't once stopped to consider the other side of that coin. What it had cost Heero to walk away, and why he'd done it.

He couldn't think straight. He had needed to make sure Duo was safe. He'd just acted on instinct, done the only thing he knew how. Protected. To the point of persecution. Duo wanted to wrap his hands so tight around Heero's neck there would be no way to pry them loose, but his hand came up to his lips instead and if he closed his eyes he could just remember it. The way Heero's lips would brush against his, warm and surreal as he slipped past him to get into his Gundam.

He'd almost forgotten what it felt like but while he sat there, remembering it he could feel it again. Warm and soft and full of a promise, feather light and fragile. A question waiting to be answered...

Duo's eyes flew open and Heero was right there, arms braced on the armrests of Duo's chair, eyes wide and fixed on Duo's, nose to nose and breath gusting softly against Duo's upper lip.

"Please tell me I don't have to wait any more." His voice was barely a whisper, more like air that somehow managed to crawl into Duo's mind and become words and Duo heard a whimper escape his own lips before his hands were up, wrapping around Heero's neck and dragging him down, back into the circle of arms that he hadn't thought remembered what it was like to hold and be held but they did.

Heero fit against him as he always had. Perfectly and his own arms wrapped around Duo just as tightly, as if they hadn't stopped holding each other that way. As if Duo hadn't done everything in his power to block them all from his life, as if they had never existed. He'd thought them oblivious to him, that they had moved on without a second thought and he realised that he had wanted to believe that. Had maybe in some way needed it, to learn how to live himself after the war. Maybe Howard had seen it, maybe he'd understood, or maybe Duo really had just been that much of a prick whenever his wartime companions were mentioned, but Howard had tried to keep the link available, even while keeping it hidden and Duo knew he was going to have to thank the man, even as he bellowed at him because Howard had done it too.

Shielded. Protected. Defended. When there wasn't an enemy that could do any more damage than Duo had done to himself.

"You swear you never meant to leave me there?"

"I meant it," Heero countered, but it pained him to say it. "But only until everything was over. Then...then you were already gone."

Duo had never been patient, and had always been impetuous. It hadn't surprised either of them, yet it had hurt both. Duo wondered if he was ever going to manage to find a way to make it up to Heero, but doubted it. He couldn't give Heero those years back any more than he could grant them back to himself.

"I'm sorry. I was just so..." Hurt. Devastated. Lonely. Destroyed. The defenses he'd had to build around himself to hide it and make sure it never happened again had been more than he'd anticipated. Heero had been deeper than he'd thought possible, and in the end the wall had blocked out the world with only a window for Howard to peek through.

"I love you," Heero whispered and Duo knew what it cost him to say it. Had always known how hard it was for Heero to break down his own well trained defenses to let such omissions slip. "I've always loved you. I loved you then, I love you now and I've loved you every day in between. I'll love you tomorrow, and fifty years from the day after tomorrow. Just let me in?"

Laughing shouldn't have been his response, but it was and Duo just pulled him in close, cradled him there against his chest and said 'yes'. Hilde's words were screaming in his ears, and Marie's desperate 'what the hell happened to you?' Wufei's strange looks, like he wasn't sure what he could say without Duo running for the hills. Howard, telling him to take the Gig or leave. All of them putting themselves on the line, finally pulling back from their point positions and letting Duo slowly crawl out of his self imposed trenches.

He had so many apologies to make he could already feel the headache. Worse, he couldn't explain even to himself now why he'd done it. It had seemed to make so much sense at the time, and then too much time passed to do anything about it. But he couldn't deny that time had passed, any more than he could pretend Heero had an entire life he knew nothing at all about.

"Let's just try out tomorrow, then we'll see about those fifty years," he admonished softly, not even sure why he was trying. Maybe because Heero wanted it so badly, and he couldn't say no to something they both wanted. It had been easy when it was just something he wanted himself.

"Okay," Heero agreed softly, pulling back and Duo saw the effort it took to pull back, to relax and realise Duo had agreed. That there was a chance. That Duo wasn't pushing him away any more. Then he smiled and Duo just stared, lost to it.

"Okay. I can do that." Mission accepted? Duo just grinned.


	10. Chapter 10

10

It was one thing to promise to give something a go in the heat of the moment. It was quite another thing to spend a good hour contemplating just what you'd agreed to while you wandered through the Valley back to your own damn ship. Duo scowled, smiled, laughed, smirked, mourned, panicked and every emotion in between as he mislead anyone daring to follow on a wild goose chase more inside his own head than reality. By the time he actually reached the Reincarnation, he was no closer to answers about anything than he had been when he left. Hell, he wasn't even sure what questions he was supposed to be asking himself.

The ship was not quiet. Duo followed the sound into the mess and stared at Hilde and Wufei, dinner on the table between them, drinks in hand, bantering. Hilde looked outraged by whatever Wufei had said and Wufei just looked smug. It was a familiar look, but one Duo hadn't seen in quite some time. He found himself staring and was just glad Wufei couldn't see him doing so.

"Welcome back, intrepid explorer!"

"Are you drunk?" Seriously? She was supposed to be working!

"I prefer to think of it as sensoraly disencumbered," Wufei smirked and Duo just stared. He hadn't realised they were both drinking, and surely that was a stupid idea? But both seemed happy and he was enamoured enough with the look on Wufei's face to admit Hilde had likely made the right call.

"Cheapest and oldest pain medication in the world," Hilde pointed out, seeing his confusion and Duo just sighed and went to sit at the table with them. He had to admit Wufei did seem in better spirits.

"Whatever keeps you sane, man," Duo muttered under his breath, only slightly surprised when Wufei didn't bother to snap in reply. The truth often hurt, that didn't mean you needed to harp on about it. It did, however, remind him that Wufei had not been 'sensoraly disencumbered' when he had first opened that stupid crate. He still had the bruises to prove it.

"Why did you attack me when I opened the crate?"

"I just got sold," Wufei was glaring at him. His eyes were hidden, but Duo could tell by the set of his mouth and the peevish set of his jaw. He thought the answer was obvious and Duo had to admit it made more sense than 'my previous owner told me to', which had been Duo's first guess.

"So you thought you would kill the bastard who bought you and what...hijack his ship?" Did the man really even understand the concept of being blind? How the hell did he think he would dock the ship? Did he think he could land it? Because that was quite possibly the dumbest idea ever, but Wufei was glaring at him again, as though he could hear his thoughts and Duo scratched that idea.

"Will you stop thinking? Just listening to you breathe that hard hurts my head." Right, because he breathed funny when he thought. It was definitely Duo's turn to glare.

"It's the Valley," Wufei muttered. "Not exactly hard for a Haze addict to sneak around unnoticed."

"Sweetie, that's because you don't know what you look like right now," Hilde interrupted and Duo found himself looking from her to Wufei and realising she found the other man attractive. He had to agree, Wufei was sexy. He'd turned enough heads to make it feasible for someone to make him a billion dollar piece of merchandise, and being in the hands of another billionaire had only seen Wufei become...visually slutty. But it still disturbed Duo that Hilde, of all people, thought the man was hot. Far too many porn scenarios involving nurses were running through his head to make it in any way comfortable.

"Excuse me?" Even Wufei seemed to be struggling with it, but Duo doubted for the same reasons. He doubted Wufei even knew nurse porn existed. Though, considering his recent occupation Duo thought he should possibly rethink what Wufei did and didn't know about the porn industry.

"You might feel like crap, but you're doing a damn good job of looking like a walking wet dream," Hilde clarified and Duo just grinned, watching the blush creep up Wufei's throat and colour the visible portion of his face. It was really rather cute that the comment still had any effect on the man at all. Then again, strangers were not the same as friends at all, and Duo doubted Wufei really had any idea what he'd looked like the past few years.

"You would be noticed," Duo had to agree, but his amusement was clear in is voice. Hilde was right, in the Valley Wufei wouldn't have been able to take five steps without someone noticing clean skin and expensive cloths and ridiculous hair. Wufei would have been a captive again in a heartbeat, or there would have been a mysterious killing spree sweeping through in his wake.

"Maybe being noticed wouldn't have been such a bad thing, in the right area," Wufei ground out and it made Duo pause and really look at him. He was serious and it was the first hint Duo had that Wufei knew his way around the Valley. Perhaps had friends here. Perhaps hadn't been as much a captive as they had all assumed.

"You mean by Barton?"

The name animated Wufei in a way nothing had yet. Not in a Wufei leapt out of his chair or jerked like a monkey response, but small, subtle changes that Duo noticed immediately. He shifted subtlety in his chair, his beads tinkled by his ear, the bandage shifted on his nose when Wufei blinked under the pads, pushing the gauze about. His fingers stroked the cool glass of his beer bottle as though recalling the feel of warm skin. Wufei looked like Duo felt when he sprawled in the sun on Howard's deck.

"Is he..." Wufei actually cleared his throat before continuing. Duo had never seen him do such a thing. "Is he here?"

"No." How much did Wufei know, or at least suspect? He had to have known the original plan, but how much had it changed since his capture? How much had Trowa and Quatre altered to allow for Wufei's retrieval? Had they altered it or had Wufei's capture been part of the plan all along?

"We're not sure where he is," and that much at least was truth. Right now he could have been several stations away with the circus or hiding on the ship in the next berth over, and Duo would be none the wiser. He was fascinated by the slight slump in Wufei's shoulders and the lack of interest he suddenly showed in the bottle.

"Duo," Heero admonished from the doorway and Duo wondered, not for the first time, how the hell the man kept getting on his ship without setting off a single alarm. Wufei had sat up, ram rod straight in his chair, head tilted slightly, listening and Heero actually grinned.

"Chang."

"Yuy..." The hint of embarrassment in his tone hurt, not least of all because it hadn't been there when Wufei's heard Duo. He'd felt no need to feel chagrined at being caught at playing whore in Maxwells company, just Yuy's. Duo wasn't sure that was an insult, but it wasn't likely to be a compliment.

"Seriously? That's the conversation you're going to have?" Duo sat back, exasperated and sighed while Heero came in and took a seat but Wufei was still sitting up straight, lips parted as if he had meant to say something else and Duo just signed because Mariemaia didn't stride into the room with her usual confidence. She slunk, like the guilty teenager she was, and looked everywhere else but at Wufei while he was the whole centre of her attention. It was almost painful, only it was hilarious and predictable which made it boring to Duo.

"Mae?"

Had he had to swear otherwise in a statement, Duo would not have been able to say she hadn't flown or spontaneously transported across the room. One minute she was on his side of the table, the next she was wrapped around Wufei so hard he seemed to be struggling with it and she was bawling her eyes out like a child. No one seemed to have the faintest clue what to do about it.

Finally it was Hilde who dared to clear her throat. Three times, with increasing volume and then she actually had to reach out and try to pry Mariemaia's hands loose.

"Sweetness, even Haze addicts need to breathe."

Mariemaia gasped and whirled on the other woman, clearly outraged anyone would dare to say such a thing in Wufei's presence, until a split second later when she realised Hilde had done it specifically to get her attention. Then she just sort of deflated and sat down heavily beside Wufei on the bench seat, still pressed close to his side but no longer suffocating him like a human octopus.

"How...you...are you...um..." Duo hadn't known she was even capable of being lost for words. It was a far cry from her usual brazen tough girl act and he had to wonder which was the real girl. Perhaps a bastard mix of both.

"I'm fine," Wufei said sternly, reaching out and running a soothing hand over her hair. It looked a familiar move and she bit her lip and barely restrained yet more tears.

"If I hear that F word from your mouth one more time, I'm going to..."

Wufei held up his hands in defeat and grinned. He looked relaxed and happier than he had seemed...ever, really. Well, since coming on board at the very least. He looked young, and reckless, and as though nothing bad had ever happened to him. It wasn't hard to see then how Marie had fallen in love with the usually stiff idiot. Duo had been wondering.

"Would someone like to explain what Mariemaia is doing in the Valley?" Wufei was serious. If he'd had a sword in his hand Duo would have been more than concerned and he found himself checking just how close the nearest frying pan was and if it would really work as a shield, despite Wufei's hands being empty. Ninjas were real. Really.

"She requested I bring her here," Heero replied immediately, and Duo had to admit honestly. Sure, it wasn't the whole truth, but it was the bare bones truth of it all and even Wufei seemed to realise it. He did look thoroughly confused by it at the same time though, which meant that at least had not been part of whatever the three musketeers original plan was.

"And you just thought a joyride in the Valley was just the thing for a teenage girl?" At least the guy didn't sound completely pissed. And surely Hilde hadn't let him near the knives, so he couldn't have anything on hand to throw at anyone's head. But Ninjas...you couldn't be too careful with Ninjas.

"She was very convincing." Even Duo had to admit he wished he'd been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Just how had Mariemaia even gone about approaching the subject? And how had she even gotten Heero alone to ask? And then the actual convincing, that couldn't have been easy? Did she have a red headed crazy streak to match her red headed angry streak? It was possible. She was, after all, friends with a Ninja.

Neither seemed prepared to divulge exactly what had happened and Heero was saved by Marie clearing her throat.

"Trowa told me to get Heero to come."

Again those subtle changes to Wufei's expression, but this time it seemed to forgive and forget whatever had possessed Heero to allow himself to be convinced to bring Mariemaia to the Valley. Apparently if Trowa said so, it was okay. Duo wondered just how far that trust went. He wasn't sure he could have trusted Heero in the same way, or he could but that was because he wasn't quite convinced Heero was entirely human and when the bastard said he was going to do something it really was already concrete, done, dusted.

Still, if Heero told him to go be a haze addict and whore to some random rich guy Duo was certain he would have clocked him on his stone fucking jaw, and then kicked him in the Crown Jewels for good measure. But Trowa seemed to be able to walk just fine. Maybe his testa less had been Ninja'd away?

"You really don't know where he is?"

"We have some theories," Heero put in, and Duo knew he wanted to pester Wufei until he burst for answers but couldn't bring himself to do it. Maybe it was Hilde's glare, but Duo suspected it was that Heero had actually come to realise people had feelings. That you could hurt them if you said or did the wrong thing. It was a pretty huge step in his 'rehabilitation' and Duo didn't want to mess with it, so he just sat back and watched it play out however it wanted to. Besides, he liked his testicles and didn't want them in the Ninja's collection, thank you very much.

"Then they found the cure," Wufei sighed, relief clear in the way he sat, the way he cupped his glass and let his chin rest a little closer to his chest. That he had jumped immediately to that assertion at least confirmed their suspicions that Wufei had been in on it, and that they were indeed making a cure. It still annoyed the hell out of Duo that no one had trusted him enough to let him in on the whole mess, but he had to admit he hadn't done a damn thing to make anyone think he would have lifted a finger to do anything for anyone but himself. Hindsight was such a strange beast. With teeth. And Ninja friends. Don't forget the Ninja!

"Hilde works for the company of the man who owned you..." Heero pointed out, the question clear in his voice.

"I know." Wufei just shrugged, as if that was obvious and they should have known he knew. Duo didn't see how that was obvious at all, and it annoyed him that glaring at Wufei didn't help to convey his displeasure at all.

"You do?" It only made Duo feel marginally better that Heero was apparently as surprised as he was to hear it.

"Hilde told me," Wufei shrugged and Marie laughed but Duo knew better. Could see the cover in it; the false truth. Hilde had mentioned it, of that Duo had no doubt, but Wufei had already known. What Duo didn't understand was why he didn't just say so. Why hide it at all? What did Wufei have to hide? Was it just that he was holding back anything until he could tell Trowa, or was it deeper than that? You couldn't trust Ninjas, their secrets had secrets.

He was getting way too paranoid. He needed to get out of the Valley. And away from freaking Ninjas. And Heero because he was pretty sure he was avoiding thinking about Yuy's by distracting himself with things like masked assassins and that was just weird.

Hilde's watch went off, the alarm tinny and annoying in the metal room. No one flinched, just stared and blinked lazily because she must have set it for a reason. Then Wufei sighed and nodded, getting up and waiting patiently as Marie got up with him as if he would need help just to stand. Duo didn't bother trying to point out the man had almost kicked his ass blind and high on Haze and could only have improved his faculties since then. He could be that drunk, for all Duo knew, after all. Lightweight. Or Ninja!

"Good boy," Hilde grinned approvingly and even Heero smirked at the grunt she got from Wufei. None of them were good patients, Quatre was perhaps better than the rest, but Wufei was doing a good show of at least attempting to be civil about being told what to do. Duo couldn't have managed the same.

Duo didn't miss the way Heero's gaze followed them all the way out the door, not dropping until they heard Marie close the door to the second room and their own fell into silence.

"You aren't going to follow them? What if they're plotting something together?" Hilde looked dubious about the entire affair and Duo had to admit he would have been in her position as well. Marie wasn't exactly one of the most trusted people in the Earth Sphere. She had been under house arrest since the Incident for a reason.

"I'm not worried." And yet Heero had felt the need to point it out. Even Duo raised a brow at him and his surprise didn't fade at all when Heero just shrugged and smirked at him.

"Duo has the room bugged." As if it were that obvious.

"He does." Clearly Hilde didn't see how Heero knew that, which was nice since aduo didn't know either. Only he did. Just like he knew Heero had a gun on him somewhere. It was just the way they were.

"I do," he agreed at last but his chest felt tighter than it should have as he said it and his face felt hot. Hilde was looking between them as if an invisible line were sending readable text on a neon line between their heads. That or there really was a giant stamp on each of their heads that read.

"You're together! Oh my god, you actually listened to me!" did she need to gape like that? That was rude, right? Gaping?

"It's none of your business," Heero cut in immediately and Hilde actually looked ready to argue, had her mouth open to do it and everything before some corner of her brain remembered she as talking to Heero Yuy's and her gob suddenly slammed shut, a contrite appearance on her face.

"Definitely none of my business." Yeah, right could not have been any plainer but Heero let it drop, for which Duo was thankful. He would come up with a way to handle her later, when he had time to think for himself.

"Something about all of this isn't right," Heero muttered and Duo just grunted because really, nothing about this had been right since Howard demand he go and take a Gig. Should have told the old man where to shove it and taken an extended vacation in the Seychelles.

"Damn straight it isn't right, Duo's love life is completely my business!" Foot, mouth and all that. Even Hilde could figure it out when Heero was glaring at her. It just left a very satisfied smirk plastered on Duo's face. Things that annoyed Heero generally had that effect on him.

"Wufei's knows more than he's telling us."

"Of course he does," Duo had to laugh because talk about stating the obvious. He rolled his eyes when Heero simply repositioned his glare in Duo's direction and made some vague effort to elaborate. "The man has been a slave, and is still coming down off the worst drug in human history. I would assume he had lost his mind if he just started spurting secrets first chance he got. He's where he is for a reason and he's not about to tell anyone other than his co-conspirators what he learnt."

"He can trust us," Heero scowled, clearly affronted by Wufei's lack of trust in his obvious awesomeness.

"Ninjas don't trust anyone." They were both looking at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head, of cabbage no less. It just made him is and roll his eyes, wondering where his brain had come up with the Ninja thing to begin with. Only that was exactly what he was trying to avoid by thinking of Ninjas.

"Trowa is the key to this mess. We find Trowa we get our answers."

"Or we ask Quatre."

"Right, because fort obnoxious is going to take our request for information seriously and not badger us about our personal lives at all." It was hard to tell, these days, if Quatre was genuinely concerned by whatever his weird mutant space heart was telling him, or if he used it as a mask to hide what he himself was feeling. And up to. Definitely up to things, Quatre Winner. By the expressions around the table he wasn't the only one who had trouble maintaining, let alone enjoying, a conversation with Winner.

"So we find Barton," Hilde nodded in agreement and Duo just laughed because they were not exactly the dream team of detectives. Heero, sure, but he tended to locate and destroy, and Duo... liked to infiltrate and destroy and Hilde...Hilde liked to be a damn copy cat which in this case mean locate, infiltrate and destroy... Duo wasn't liking the odds of Trowa surviving being found, which while not personally devastating, could still have huge ramifications for them finding out if all their guesses about the terrible trio were correct.

"I've got a program running logging the movements of circuses through the colonies and any smaller ships arriving or leaving within two days of each circuses movements, trying to see if anything overlaps, but if I was Barton I would have a ship that separates from the main one once in space so there was no need for docking procedures." Heero had started the party without him. Duo supposed he'd had to do something while Duo was roaming the colony with a mental meltdown because Yuy had decided to kiss him. Sitting it through and thinking about it himself just wasn't the Yuy way.

"If he designed it, it's possible it just looks like part of the ships hull, probably doesn't even get inspected." Which would make drug running so much easier. He really was onto something with the whole Circus Freedom of Movement thing. Smart bastard.

"I think we can safely say he had financial backing to build whatever the hell he needed," Hilde put in and Duo had to agree. Trowa snapped his fingers and Quatre handed out green lollipops. Until Winner factories invaded the lands of obscure dolphins in the Amazon...how had they all fallen for that, seriously? It sounded ridiculous in his head now. Hindsight. Seriously. It was like a Ninja.

"So we know they've made a cure for Haze and they're ready to distribute it as Haze."

"We'll, really you just hope it's a cure for Haze and not something even worse," Hilde cut in, looking at the ceiling as if it were interesting until she apparently noticed they were both staring at her and then she just shrugged. "You're both now working under the assumption Trowa's still a good guy."

"You think he's a good guy," Duo countered, sullen because he sure as hell hadn't been the one trying to make out that Trowa still had anything resembling basic human morals, it was everyone else trying to prove that to him, and in his opinion they still had a long way to go.

"I think he was a good guy and that he should be given the benefit of the doubt, but we are making assumptions based on the idea that he's a good guy. It's just as easy to make assumptions that he's playing for the nasty team." And Duo suspected she was secretly in love with the few bad boy Trowa images they had. Pervert.

"Does it matter either way?" Heero sat back in his chair and crossed him arms in what Duo liked to think of as his 'if I look intelligent I might fool people into listening to me' pose. Heero used that pose a lot when he didn't think shooting people was an option, if memory served.

"Good or bad, we are certain Quatre is going to distribute this drug."

"So if Trowa's bad, does that make Quatre bad as well? I mean they're working together, right?"

"Okay thinking of Barton in leathers and shirtless is one thing, but Winner? Really?" Duo was confident he could say he had never found Quatre Winner in any way shape or form sexually attractive, and he really wished Hilde was stop thinking of his acquaintances that way. Did she thinks about Zechs like that? Seriously...gross.

"Can you two focus?" Temper, temper Heero. Duo was pleased Hilde's grin matched his own and sufficiently said 'eat shit Yuy'.

"Yes, we can safely say Winner, good or bad, is going to distribute the drug."

"We can test it," Duo pointed out curiously and he knew immediately by the shift in Heero's shoulders that it was not something that he had thought of.

"How?"

"We have a drug trafficker," Duo nodded to Hilde and saw her roll her eyes. Clearly it wasn't the job desscription she was accustomed to. "And we have an addict. If its really a cure, we take Wufei's and Hilde, pick up a batch and between pick up and drop off we try it out."

"Wufei's detoxed!" Hilde protested immediately. "We would have to give him the cure, and then shoot him full of Haze again!" It didn't sit we'll with her, and Duo understood why, but the part of him that didn't care was cold and calculating and realised this was the way to be sure. To know first hand what the drug would do. If it was really a cure, or something worse. To know for certain if Quatre, at least, was good or evil. Trowa he was reserving judgement for on principle.

"That could work."

"Heero! You cannot agree to this! Wufei's has been through enough!"

"What if its what he's here for?" Heero countered and it shut them both up.

"Huh?" That, Duo had not considered.

"Trowa just happened to arrange for Hilde, who happens to ran sport Ceuron products, to get on your ship, with Wufei. You assumed as a nurse, but Wufei could probably have managed on his own, no offence Hilde."

"None taken, the guy may as well not be human anyway." That, Duo didn't bother to point out, was because he was a Ninja.

"So what if they're here so we can do precisely what we're thinking? Test it. Make sure it works."

"They would have tested it before trying to release it," Hilde pointed out reasonably. "Drugs have to pass all sorts of procedures and crap before being released to the public. Years of trials and stuff."

"They know it works, but we don't," Duo realised where Heero was coming from with it. "They're giving us the chance to test it, so that we know it works."

"To prove they're on our side," Heero agreed but Duo was still frowning darkly, not liking it one bit.

"S we have to shoot Chang up to prove they're not shit humans? That makes us shit humans!" How dare they make him have to stoop to their level just to prove they weren't monsters. That made them all monsters in his book. But if they didn't try it, if Quatre and Trowa were bad and were relying on him to not shoot Wufei up because they knew he thought it was wrong...

There were greater evils. Was that the lesson in it all? How terrifying did the end have to be to justify the means? Duo wasn't sure he liked where this was headed.

"We test it," they all decided at once, and Hilde just looked wry.

"Testing it doesn't find us Trowa," Heero reminded them and Duo just shrugged. Again.

"Once we know what it is, we know if we even need to help him. If we do, then it's simple." And it really was, if you were willing to use any means. In that case the answer had been there all along. If you were willing to be really evil. But they were both staring at him and the guilt was thick in his gut, lacing his tongue. H could taste it rising in him, the same bitterness he'd felt when he woke in that hospital bed alone and something in his heart had closed, leaving him able to think clearly. So very, very clearly. Because at some point something in you breaks and people become little more than an abstraction. A piece of something viewed through a stained glass window, discoloured and other. Beyond self.

"If the drug works, we've got a cure," he clarified. "If you want to find Trowa just shoot Mariemaia up with some Haze and ask her where he is." Because Duo suspected she knew, even if she didn't know she did. Duo thought she knew a lot of Trowa's secrets, and that her role in Trowa's little masterpiece was one she was never supposed to realise. That was just the way Trowa liked to play. By manipulating people into doing things they would never want to do.

They were looking at him as if another cabbage head had sprouted. Hilde's cheeks were colouring with anger, mouth moving as she struggled to think of an adequate response. Heero was just glaring, looking for all the world like he had swallowed something very sour. He didn't like it, but he wasn't saying anything which meant he thought Duo might be right.

Duo was quiet, still disconnected in his own headspace, quietly content because it had finally clicked, why Heero thought he was similar to Trowa. The way they fought in battle, not identical but at the core a similar resolve.

It all came down to means. When you had nothing, you didn't mind using everything to get to the end. Duo understood that all too well, had made sure after that one time of having something and losing it for the greater good that he kept it back to nothing. That's how he always came back from the impossible job, because the means were all at his disposal.

But he looked at Heero and that little something in his chest that had cracked wide open felt like a gaping hole inside him. What if something replaced that nothing? What did means become if the end wasn't just for the rest of the world anymore? What if means were for selfish reasons, to keep them with you and safe and...

It was all about means, and Trowa had two very solid and real reasons to make sure he got the end he wanted.

"You want to give Marie Haze. Over my dead fucking body!" As if it would ever come to that. Duo just let Hilde vent because he could see Heero seriously considering it. Seeing him perhaps coming to similar hard conclusions about just who they were dealing with.

"Might not even come to that," Duo said softly. "Heero' super secret little program might figure out where Trowa is, or the drug might not even be a cure, or Trowa might magically appear between now and then." Or a thousand other scenarios.

"But the option is there."


	11. Chapter 11

9:

"That's disgusting and you know it! Both of you!" And that was apparently all Hilde was willing to say on the matter. A good thing, in Duo's opinion, since neither Heero nor himself were likely to budge on their own opinions until something had to be done about it, and then they would just make up their minds. Until then, there was certainly no point in arguing about it. So Trowa expected them to be monsters? Duo could do that. Had done that. Could do it again, no worries.

That didn't mean he didn't feel the grain of guilt settling in his stomach as he watched her storm out, her footsteps telling him she went to the cargo bay, most likely to blow off some steam. A good thing, again.

Which left him very much alone with Heero. Not such a good thing, though he supposed that was dependent on your view of the situation. He wasn't ready, was the point, and he sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh, trying to think of anything but the man beside him.

"If you keep thinking about Ninja's you're likely to hurt yourself."

"How the holy fuck did you..."

"Don't take any part of the Lord in vain, and because you would have focussed on the first thing you saw when you came in the room instead of focussing on me, and since Wufei was very drunk when I came in I'm assuming that's the first thing you would have taken note of."

"That doesn't mean I was thinking about Ninjas! It just means I was thinking about Wufei, which considering the guys most recent occupation is downright creepy and I demand you take that back!"

But Heero was smirking, pleased with himself and Duo found himself just shaking his head, incredulous. Heero had gotten better at reading people. Reading him, apparently, as if his thoughts had been scrawled across his head.

"Ninjas aren't even around anymore you know..."

"I know that!" He wasn't that stupid and it was just insulting that Heero had felt the need to say so. Only the man was outright grinning now and Duo realised he'd just taken another wild guess at tangents Duo's own Ninja-riddled thoughts might have taken.

"Come on, you have to admit if there was a candidate for a Ninja, Wufei would be your first guess..."

"I don't know, concubine comes to mind when I think of Wufei and hidden occupations..."

Duo just stared at the man, wondering if he'd possibly had a lobotomy or something similar in the years between the Incident and their arrival in the Valley.

"Are aliens real?"

"I have not been abducted," Heero rolled his eyes and chuckled softly. Amused, because Duo was apparently that easy to follow. It grated and Duo suspected he now had his answer as to how Heero kept getting on board.

Somehow he knew everything. Knew exactly where Duo's traps where, how he set about building his defenses and when to move against them. Heero had done his homework, as usual, but Duo had no idea when the mission had become Duo himself.

"So we need to go test these drugs..."

"You're not coming," Heero interrupted immediately and it left Duo oddly silent. Just staring and wondering if he'd heard wrong when he knew he hadn't.

"It's my ship, I sure as hell am!"

"It's Howard's ship," Heero corrected. "He won't mind if I borrow it."

"Of course he won't because he's apparently besties with everyone I used to know!"

"Because you wouldn't let us damn well anywhere near you! But you chose to take the Gig so shut your damn mouth and for once listen to me when I tell you to stay the hell here!" Just like then, only not. Then Heero had listened to all of Duo's protests and begging and eventually had let him come. Had planned it with him, agreed to Duo's alterations to the infiltration, the whole time knowing that when he got to the crux of it all he would just take Duo out of the picture. At least this time he was being upfront about it. Apparently growing up gave you balls, or something.

Heero was taking deep breaths. It gave Duo something to focus on and he did so with single minded determination, watching Heero's nostrils flare in and out...in and out until his own anger was whisked away by the observation that Heero's nostrils weren't that different from a horse... He wondered what sort of pony Heero would be, and if a NInja would ride it.

"You will stay here. I will take Hilde and Wufei and we will test the drugs."

"Marie?"

"Stays with you as leverage," Heero replied so softly Duo found himself straining to hear. As if afraid they might be overheard. As if the Ninja could hear through the gundanium lined walls and blindly sneak Mariemaia away before they could put Heero's plan into action.

"I am not staying here to babysit the teenager you brought here."

"Why not? It's your Gig, isn't it? Retrieve Mariemaia?"

"And you," Duo reminded him coldly and he once again spent a moment fantasizing about just shooting everyone, snapping the happy completion shot and heading home. But it had long ago passed that point. There was Quatre involved now, and Trowa, and maybe even a whole bunch of seemingly important business type people. But most importantly a whole tonne of innocent bystanders were stuck in the middle, and Duo knew that regardless of whatever other reasons he might have he would be staying for them. To make sure at least one lonely little soul in the universe put them first. Or maybe second, depending on just how much of his heart Heero had managed to thaw out. That remained to be seen.

"I'm not letting you shoot up Wufei," Heero explained softly. "I won't do that to you." But he'd leave him there to shoot up Mariemaia? How was that any better? Unless he already believed Quatre and Trowa were good, and there really was a cure. Which was the nicer story to believe, but Duo wasn't all that fond of 'nice'. It just wasn't that believable.

"Okay...so I'm what, taking your ship over?"

"The Reincarnation's faster, and if you set us up for a run we have the perfect cover."

He would need a reason to request a run to the right colony but that would be easy enough. A girl. Every good story involved a girl. The story was already forming and he just nodded, getting up because there was no time like the present and if they wanted to get moving he would have to set up the run soon. Fast off the back of his first success. Eager...It would look completely natural. Fine, that was doable.

"It's not a babysitting gig," Heero admonished, a pleading note in his voice. It made Duo look down at him and actually listen. See the smile there and the trust.

"You might need to explain that?"

"Someone has to find Barton," Heero pointed out, getting up himself and leaving first, heading to the bridge and Duo just stood there, staring at the doorway and wondering if it was maybe, just maybe a joke. Because Heero was actually willing to leave him alone to find Barton knowing there was still a fifty chance he would kill him on sight. Drug trafficking, life annihilating fucker that he was, even if he'd supposedly had good reason for his actions. And that was debatable.

He forced himself to move, going to his room and grabbing a few weapons to stash conveniently among his clothes and checking he was dirty enough to pass muster before heading out. Visibly, and he hated that. Having to waltz out and whistle and act like it wasn't the stupidest thing to do. Allow attention to fall on him, to be seen sneaking his way through the lanes and alleys of the Valley to the gunrunners. Speaking in too hushed, excited tones, still high on the adrenaline of it.

He left with a lecture about not spending all his dough at once and a confirmation of a small run to that colony that needed to be made. The crates would be ready for collection that night and he could leave as soon as it was on board. It was all so easy Duo wanted to cry, but it also reminded him that Heero had read him just as easily as he had read Old Duke. Heero, the guy who used to get confused by party invites. Just what had happened to him, anyway? Was it Relena's influence? Because that was just creepy.

But then he went back to the Diner to try and get some more out of the waitress, or whoever he could find there willing to talk. It was a bit of a hike from the gunrunners and he took the long way, meandering as if looking for a place to spend some of his dough, just like he'd been told not to. He even tried to proposition a hooker for good measure, making sure she would remember just enough that she could say he had been there, but recall nothing else about him.

Had he actually said this had gotten fun, when they first realised Trowa needed their help to be found? He distinctly remembered saying it and wished he could take it back. Absolutely nothing about any of this so far had been fun. It had, in fact, been a royal pain in the behind. Way worse than Relena! He kicked a piece of awning down the street in frustration and winced when he heard a yelp, turning to see what he'd hit, knowing full well it was a person and just not wanting to acknowledge it. Yet.

"The Valley is a maze, the maze is in a Haze..." Duo sighed and slunk back a little, as if the man disgusted him. Not hard when he sort of did, but this time he didn't seem as out of it. Sure he was repeating the same old rhyme but now when Duo looked at him he seemed to see him, even with the silver shining in his eyes. His teeth were yellowed but no longer looked ready to fall out of his face. His face was old and weathered, but there was a hint of clarity to it that had been buried in the shock of his appearance the first time Duo had seen him. It wasn't something he thought anyone would ever notice, just small, subtle hints that Duo noticed now because he was looking for them. Because he'd let the dirt and grime in so far that he was noticing now when it wasn't dirty enough.

He wandered closer, not surprised when the man's singing grew more insistent, the same song, the same words but jumbled differently each time. He watched the hands reach for him and sidestepped, staring at the black chalky substance engrained in the man's skin. Too powdered to be the grime of years. Engrained, certainly, but less than it appeared.

Frowning, Duo knelt nearby and studied the man, who quieted quickly and stared back in his direction, a vague look on his face as if aware Duo was there but unsure exactly where. That he was blind, Duo didn't doubt; his eyes had the sunken, shrunken cast of an addict but he was also certain the man knew he was there. Felt his eyes on his insides, as if he were being looked into.

"Don't let Chinny scare you off. Just an old addict. We let him hang around for scraps at the end of the day."

Duo looked up at the voice and nodded as if he'd simply been intimidated by the old man and forced himself to look away, smiling up at the woman. Not the waitress from the day before, prettier and less infested but perhaps on the fast lane to that lifestyle anyway. She could have been Marie, trying to protect a friend and struggling to survive in hell. That hit hard but he forced it down.

When he dared steal a glance over his shoulder 'Chinny' was looking straight at him, and for a moment it looked like he held up three fingers. But it could have been a wave, a salute, or a thousand other gestures or nothing at all.

"Haze. It's so sad, you know?" She seemed to be the only person in the Valley who thought so but Duo winced like she'd hit on one of his dirty little secrets and tried to not look back again. Maybe he knew someone who'd ended up the same, it was up to her to make the assumptions.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Uh yeah...something hot to drink?" Because his bones were feeling cold, and at least if it was hot it meant at some point it had been boiled and the germs should be good and dead.

"Sure thing, I'll be right back."

He hadn't specified non-alcoholic but it would have made him too memorable if he had; made him stand out. So he knew he was just as likely to get heated rocket fuel as a coffee. Whatever worked, though he was hoping being on a makeshift colony reached by space vessels meant rocket fuel was have more value than coffee and at least not be available in every side street diner in the Valley.

He found himself stealing glances at the walls, looking for more clues but the only image with Trowa in it was the one he had noticed the first time. He didn't stare at it, but he felt as if it were staring at him. Accusing, because it was his Gig now, to find Trowa and figure out if the man should die or not. His fingers were just getting itchy. It had been a long while now since he had taken a life, six months at least, and every time since the war it had been a necessary side effect of a Gig, and the guy had always been bad. Like black hearted, rot in hell bad. Leftovers from the war that shouldn't have made it to the Incident.

Trowa's gaze seemed to glare at him from the wall and Duo found himself watching him right back, looking for the clues. This was the image of Trowa that had stuck in his head since he arrived, Trowa the drug dealer, tainted by the mask he had left with the whore. His clothes were typical Valley, a conglomerate mix of leftover military madness caked in dirt from the here to the moon and back and mixed in with some old casuals like the torn and ragged flannel Trowa had on, sleeves cut to reveal the skin tight military issue thermal shirt beneath. And muscle. Bulging, ridiculous muscle. Duo had to slave to get what he had, and he was damn proud of what he had, but Trowa had that effortless genetic thing going on. It really wasn't fair.

The man was strong. Had to be, to do what he was doing, but there was more to it than that. Trowa had grown into his tall frame, filled it out and then some. Quatre had matched him in height but where Quatre was all lean lankiness, Trowa was a brick wall. His build matched his personality, if Duo was honest, but he wasn't honest all that often.

"That's Bloom," his waitress mumbled, putting a steaming cup down in front of him that at least smelt a little like something that might resemble coffee. But it was alcoholic, he could smell that too and being able to smell it didn't make him feel too positive about drinking it. But he sipped it thoughtfully, blowing at the steam on top and making appropriate gasping noises he didn't even need to fake because rocket fuel as a guess hadn't been that far off.

"Christ, what the fuck is that?"

"Chef's personal recipe," she laughed and looked like she agreed with his assessment. But they both knew he was going to drink it.

"He looks mad."

"Mmm...I wouldn't want to meet him," she mused, looking at the photo. There was lust in her expression but he believed her. Whatever she knew about Trowa, she didn't want to meet him. But then, she wasn't an addict. But there was more to it than that.

"I've seen him a few times...in real life? He came in here once, but I didn't have to serve him. But you can just_ feel_ when he's watching you. It's dead creepy, like he sees everything? I felt like my skin was going to fall off my bones..."

Duo knew the look. They all had it, to some extent and he didn't think being a drug trafficker would take the heat out of it at all. Worse, he thought he might understand where some of the heat in it would have come from anew.

He sipped his 'coffee' as she walked away and stole adequate glances at the picture as if he was just thinking on what she had said. Which he was.

Wufei had been captured in their pursuit of a cure. Whether it had been part of the plan or not, it wouldn't have sat well with Trowa. Some of that rage in his eyes stemmed from that knowledge alone. Then it was this place. It did things to you, made you harder and colder and sank into you like the air was poisoned with something defined simply as 'the Valley'. That was scrawled across Trowa's features as well. But in amongst the dark and the evil was that grain of something that was just Trowa. Hurt and lonely and struggling to survive against odds.

Infiltrating. Learning. Calculating. Why did the bastard have to go so deep? They'd always said one day he would get himself so deep into something he wouldn't be able to get out again, and now here they were. Duo had always promised when Trowa got to that point he wasn't going to be the one to drag him out of it, and now he was doing just that! Hell, he'd even gone and dragged his boyfriend out as well, and paid a million credit for the privilege. They were going to be paying back every cent.

But where was he now? The picture on the wall just told him he'd been there, it didn't help him actually find the bastard. He needed to go through Heero's research and the files again, but he didn't want to spend more time with the man than was necessary. Wanted alone time to think, and maybe Heero knew that and was leaving him behind again because of it. That really wasn't helping, even if he was grateful he wasn't going to be the one to put Haze in Wufei. To see the look on the man's face when he realised what they had planned.

He finished his drink with a heavier heart than stomach, though his stomach felt like it's walls were melting and he left the waitress a good tip, but not exorbitant. Just enough that she would easily admit he had been there, but that there was nothing else really memorable about him.

"The maze is in the haze!" Chinny was chanting on the front steps but he grew quieter, whispering it under his breath creepily as Duo skulked past, sneering at the man but also observing. Seeing the way his head tilted to the side in a way that was growing all too familiar because Wufei did it too. Tracking, always listening for small signs of things that normal people didn't even notice. The tiny details that aurally told you where people were and where they were going.

Only Wufei was sane, and mentally unscathed by Haze. Chinny was supposed to be destroyed by it. Duo recalled the whore and her limited sense of self and turned away, not wanting to see it any more. Thinking on was already going to give him nightmares.

Wufei was in the cargo hold when he came in, doing tai chi or something like it. He moved with precision, a he always had but there was more to it now. Duo watched the way he moved his head, subtly allowing the braids to chime in very particular places while his feet scraped the floor in a way they never had when he could see. Feeling out, listening to the echoes of his own noise, sensing distance and placement. It had to have taken endless hours upon hours of determined practise to retrain himself. Discipline Chinny didn't have. At least, didn't have now but the man was old and who knew what he had done in his youth. Perhaps Chinny had once been like Wufei?

It wasn't a kind line of thought and Duo left Wufei to it, moving past without bothering to say anything and going to his room, aware of Heero and Hilde talking softly on the bridge and just not wanting to have to talk about anything. Feeling raw, and in all honestly ill from his 'coffee'. He would have done anything for a shower. To be clean. He suspected the dirt he felt wasn't entirely on the outside and that didn't sit well with him at all. He didn't want to look at his reflection and see the poison from Trowa's face staring back.

Laying on his bed, staring at his ceiling, eyes closed, breathing calm. What does the sun feel like on your face? Warm. Bright. Let it sink in, all the way in to warm iced bone. Sink through until you forget the cold clarity of calm. Soothe away the discord, just feel the warmth.

He woke to the smell of real coffee, and to Heero sitting at his small desk, bent over his laptop, looking frustrated and so very absorbed. It was a familiar sight and Duo took a moment just to enjoy it. He knew not many people were ever allowed to see Heero in what Duo liked to think of as preparation mode. They got to see the guns blazing, brazen, determined and cocky madness but not the subdued, dedicated soldier internalizing the mission. This was the Heero that Duo had originally fallen in love with, hunched over his computer for endless hours each night in whatever hole they found themselves hiding out in, trying to decide the best move for the next day. Duo liked this Heero because nothing was set in stone; because of the uncertainty.

"You're awake."

"No shit." Duo rolled his eyes and rolled off the bed, sighing at the smudges he left on the nice sheets. Howard was definitely footing the cleaning bill for that. Or replacement bill, since it didn't really look all that cleanable. It would stain, definitely.

"Howard will pay for it," Heero muttered, shaking his head as if he would never have thought about it. He probably wouldn't. He probably had a damn maid, or Relena did. Whatever.

"Have I developed a muttering habit where every thought I have spills out all over the place without my noticing for your enjoyment?" Because it was a little creepy that he seemed to know how to read his mind. It was one thing to call him Superman as a joke, it was quite another for there to be actual evidence for it.

"You sneered at the sheets...I just followed the line of thought you were most likely to follow based on the fact you hate cleaning and paying for things you don't feel responsible for. Actually, you just hate paying for things in general," he amended.

"I work hard for my money! I shouldn't have to spend it!"

"Then why earn it?" He seemed genuinely curious, even turned away from the laptop to watch him while he tried to figure out the answer. It was frustrating because Duo didn't really have an answer.

"I just like seeing a big number when I look at the account balance," he muttered, mostly to himself because he knew how stupid that sounded. It wasn't like he needed the money, at all. He could build whatever he needed from any pile of scrap and sell it for food if he needed that. He could scrape by anywhere, even the Valley. He didn't need the money, he really did just like challenging himself to see how much money he could get. It was more a game than anything now.

"It's your security blanket," Heero corrected and Duo knew he was right. Knowing what it was like to not have money there if you ever did need it made it damn hard to let go of when you did have it. Especially if the cost wasn't justified. It still rankled that Heero knew it.

"Your coffee's getting cold," Heero noted, pointing to the cup he had put by the bed and Duo found himself staring at it, as if unsure how it had gotten there when it was obvious Heero had made it for him. But that was the weird part. Heero. Making him coffee. He didn't want to enjoy it, because tomorrow it wouldn't happen and he would miss it and that ache was unbearable.

He took it carefully, as if the cup might sting, but it just warmed his hand and when he sipped it the coffee was strong and the water warm like the sun he'd been imagining when he fell asleep coming back into his bones.

"There's a crate to collect tonight with the delivery instructions for the colony the drugs are being released from in the first shipment. We just need to make sure Hilde's signed on for the first delivery and you're good to go."

"She was making the arrangements earlier," Heero agreed, sounding pleased and Duo knew he was just happy the framework of a plan that made sense was coming together. Neither of them liked trying to figure out Trowa's plan and go along with it. Much more comfortable to say Fuck You Barton and do their own thing.

"You got any ideas where I should be looking for Barton?"

"I've been running through recent circus performances and I found Trowa's, but he's not with them. They've done seven performances this week on L4, but Cathy hasn't been on the show list for any of them."

"Because she hasn't got anyone to throw knives at," Duo deduced and sighed. If he wasn't with the damn circus he could be anywhere.

"The circus took a day longer to reach L4 from it's previous port than it should have, and after looking into it further I found it's a pretty common occurrence. Most would assume it's slow ships but..."

"But Trowa upgraded those ships right after the war. They're state of the art," Duo recalled. He'd asked for their advice on security measures and Wufei had even helped design some new cooling system that helped the drives run at maximum capacity for longer. Putting his spiffy new engineering degree to work right in their faces. Had they been planning this back then? Bastards. Duo was glad he hadn't bothered to contribute and had taken a Gig a few billion miles away instead.

"The last crossover would have given them enough time to get a ship to the Valley and back before they arrived at L4."

"But Trowa's not with them," Duo pointed out, so why the stopover to the Valley? Unless of course you had orders to only wait a day and go on to L4 if Trowa didn't show. That was _very_ old school Barton, covering the Circus if anything went wrong on the illegal end of things.

"But he _was_ with them for the shows last week," Heero noted, pulling up a picture on a blog from the circus' previous shows. Sure enough there was Barton, mask on, pinned to the wall by a slew of knives, Cathy in her element looking as stunning as ever at the forefront.

"Is his hair _curled?_" Really? "Is that makeup?"

"Duo!" Heero snapped and Duo sighed, shrugging because he was just making the joke to by himself the time he needed to process the information and they both knew it. Old habits and all that. It was more reflex than anything these days.

"So you think he's here?"

"It's possible. I think his ship is here somewhere, even if he's not."

"Find the ship, find the man," Duo mused. It was getting fun again. He really had to stop thinking of hunting down Trowa Barton as fun. Not that he was hunting, that wasn't the word he would use, not out loud anyway. Attempting to procure the whereabouts? Seeking out?

"Are you going to be alright?" It wasn't the question he had expected Heero to ask and it froze his thoughts, leaving the coffee hot in his belly and heat in his face. For once not anger.

"I don't think it's me we need to be worrying about. You're the one who's going to be on a ship alone with a concubine Ninja, a redhead and a Nazi."

"Hilde is not a Nazi!" But it was damn funny to hear Heero defending her to him of all people.

"Wait until she yells at you for something that's entirely not your fault," Duo countered and he got up, moving to get a better look at Heero's screen, seeing the drug release notes and various other notes pinned to the screen about Quatre's wonder drug. A lot about Quatre himself too, which was only smart but it still hurt somewhere within that they had been brought to a point where they had to investigate friends. To use old companions to see if they were still worthy, or if they'd changed allegiance.

He started packing a bag, shoving the bare necessities in and trying to ignore the way Heero watched everything he did. Learning him in a way Duo didn't want to be learnt. But Heero would be Heero, better to just ignore him and do what had to be done.

"I'll drop the guns off an hour before your scheduled departure," he said softly, checking he had Heero's timetable memorized. His hands were sweating, not a good sign but he'd at least had some sleep. Nerves he could handle, sleep deprivation was the killer.

"Duo..." Heero's hand slid down his arm, fingers wrapping loose but firm around his wrist to tug him around until he was staring at Heero, face to face and lips oh so very close. His whole world turned blue, drawn into all too familiar eyes. His own mouth felt dry and his chest suddenly full and empty at the same time.

"Be careful," he heard himself whisper and it didn't sound like his own voice at all but something in Heero softened and his fingers stroked gently up to his shoulder and cupped his cheek before warm lips pressed against his own.

Then Heero was gone, striding out the door, leaving him to do what he had with one parting gift of words.

"Security code for the Cathedral is Scythe02." Duo stared at the wall for a long time before scowling.

"Who the hell names a ship _the Cathedral_?"


	12. Chapter 12

12:

The first thing Duo did once the Reincarnation was past the point of the Cathedral's tracking monitors was search the Cathedral thoroughly. And really, who could blame him when Heero had been using modified tracking monitors to track the Reincarnation. As if Duo might make a mistake and screw up his mission, or some other ridiculous hair brained idea that only Heero Yuy would have. No, Duo felt entirely justified snooping, when apparently Heero felt the need to do unwarranted snooping of his own.

Besides, Marie was off 'working', if you could call it that, so it wasn't like he needed to be 'babysitting'.

It was a nice ship, even Duo could admit that. He wondered who owned it, if Heero had simply taken it from Relena or Quatre or wherever he had been at the time or if it was actually his. The longer he spent snooping, the more he suspected the latter. Little, subtle clues that screamed there was something akin to love in the way it all worked.

"I still don't want to know why he called it the damned Cathedral," Duo muttered under his breath.

It was a little bigger than the Reincarnation; bridge, galley, three cabins, cargo bay and not really surprising when it was Heero but an escape pod that seemed deceptively over-laden with weaponry. Duo spent a little longer than he felt like admitting even to himself just sitting in the pod and stroking the panel of controls, closed in, surrounded on all sides. Safe. Warm in the cold.

Marie's room was obvious and not just because Duo had seen her come in and out of it numerous times. There weren't huge piles of clothes and makeup all over like so many teenage girls to give her away either. It was, to his embarrassment, the underwear drawer. Which he felt entirely justified raiding just in case it was where she hid her diary or some such. She didn't, but that wasn't the point. He wasn't sure Mariemaia even kept a diary, and seriously doubted it. She wasn't stupid enough to write down anything. Not anything of importance anyway.

Which made him wonder about the diary that had been submitted in evidence to Preventers in the case to keep Wufei suspended. It had irked Duo when he heard about it, and now he understood a little better why. It screamed set up; screamed Mariemaia was in on keeping Wufei in the Valley. Or putting him there to begin with, really.

One room was set up as more of an office, a bed nailed down in the corner but the majority of the room looked like a boardroom and there were several computers against the far wall. Duo took his time trying to hack them but came up with nothing. Whatever Heero had created to block access was good. A little too good. Duo suspected he himself might have made the software but couldn't be sure without getting in the back end. It still nagged at him that he couldn't break his own damn software to get in and take a squiz.

Heero's room was the last thing he dared to go in. It was neat; obnoxiously so. The bed had even been made, as if someone might point out he had climbed out of it and just left it in a mess. As if such things even mattered when you were on a kidnapping run out the Valley. Duo didn't even bother trying to hack into the personal computer in the room, and a check of the drawers revealed the simple jeans and t-shirt combinations he'd come to expect from Heero. No suits, no uniforms. Not even a damn piece of kevlar, because if the bullet didn't bounce off you could just dig it out yourself, right? And Kevlar was expensive, so of course denim was a better idea.

He did have a nice weapons collection in a hidden wall panel that had Duo whistling low and stroking the cool metal in appreciation, but knowing Heero the whole cabinet was booby trapped to hell and back so he didn't even try to take one off the wall for a closer look. What if he'd coated them in poison or something? Duo found himself staring at his fingers in consternation, counting his heart beats...

Fucking ridiculous.

There were no secrets to be found on the Cathedral. Not unlocked ones, anyway. Ultimately his small search was so unfruitful Duo found himself sitting bored on the bridge contemplating shooting up Manfred's ship just to see what would happen. Would anyone in the Valley even care if you just started firing at other vessels docked? Were there rules about who you could fire at, and who you couldn't? Was there Mettle etiquette? Valley Pride? Was there a _parade?_

Was he so bored he was losing his mind?

He needed to get out, but he sat for a while longer going through his own mental notes about the Valley, what they had learned, what they suspected and what he was supposed to be doing, which seemed far more complicated than it had when Howard had first handed him the Gig. For starters, he wasn't looking for Heero any more...and he wondered if maybe he should have been. That had him frowning, because he'd just given Heero and Marie his ship and said c'est la vie, without so much as shadowing them to make sure they were going where they said they were and this was Heerothey were talking about, not Quatre. The chances of his actually doing what he said he was going to do, especially to Duo Maxwell, were, well...

He was feeling like a right dick already, without suspecting Hilde and Wufei of being in on Heero's crazy kidnapping mission. Marie just wasn't that big of a target even if she had threatened to destroy everything Heero had ever stood for... Okay, so maybe if you were Heero she was that big of a deal, but Duo thought Heero had more sense than that.

"I do fucking not," Duo ground out, furious because he was arguing with himself, out loud, and that had to be a sign of insanity only in the Valley being insane was somewhat normal, so he wasn't sure if that meant he was really insane or just...normal?

"Focus, moron."

If it all turned out to be a giant hoax, it wouldn't be that hard to take the Cathedral, find the Reincarnation and shoot Heero, snap his dead happy photograph and hand it over to Howard with a shit eating grin on his face. Move on. That was doable, if it needed to be done. For now there was another issue, which still felt more important.

How to find Barton, when either he didn't want to be found, or he was playing a really stupid game of hide and seek. That was the only question he should have been wasting time on, because regardless of whether Heero was really on his team or he'd just been played for the biggest fool in history, again, Barton was still missing and that was a mystery Duo was actually starting to give a damn about.

In the end, sitting on his ass waiting for a solution to come to him just wasn't Duo's style. He dirtied up his clothes, which were already filthy, made sure his skin was liberally coated in grime and strapped a few extra knives where no one would notice and headed out, making sure he locked the Cathedral when he left. It probably had automatic locking or something, but he really didn't care. No, really. Not a care.

The gunrunners had to be avoided, which also meant avoiding being seen and recognised. It took effort to hide his hair, but outside of that it wasn't hard to avoid the places he knew were frequented by that crowd. Not hard at all, when he was focussed on a whole different kind of trafficking.

It was all about breadcrumbs, in the end. The pile of clues and receipts that formed a trail of sorts through the Valley, each place telling him a new piece of the puzzle. And it was a puzzle, designed to confuse, each piece scattering the rest to the wind as if they were not linked at all unless you knew they were and were just looking for the glue to piece it all back together into a viewable image.

Like the cafe he found where Bloom had started out in the Valley and the dealer there who was almost too high on his most recent trip to recall his own name but his eyes sharpened right up when Duo dropped Trowa's name and there was wariness there that made Duo not push it.

Then there was the Dominatrix whore down at the seedy club who as far as Duo could tell considered Trowa her pimp and was annoyed he had taken such a lengthy leave of absence as she had a great wad of money she was supposed to give him. Duo tried to convince her he was there to collect, but she wasn't that stupid which left Duo wondering if she was stupid at all or a plant of some kind. And whose. And to what end? What if he tried to take the money? What if he hadn't tried to take it?

A vendor in what could be considered the marketplace at the southern end of the Valley, or what Duo had come to think of as the southern end. He sold beautiful, intricate pieces of jewellery, which had seemed weird to Duo until the guy pointed out even criminals liked to buy their lady friends with bribes and the like. Especially if the trinket was worth more than the friend was asking for in cash. Trinkets like the one Trowa had bought from the man. A stunning string of gold and pearl engraved with a letter on each shiny surface, spelling out 'dream'.

The very same piece of jewellery Duo found adorning the golden, strangely clean hair of an expensive whore on a privately owned ship docked in the far east of the Valley, owned by someone who seemed to have nothing to do with anything besides making a quick buck from more than a fast fuck. Duo studied the jewels for clues but the word was what stuck as he stared at her golden hair and wondered if it was really the same shade as Quatre's or if his mind was playing tricks on him. She was a lovely girl, but she seemed to know nothing of any importance.

Much like the mask maker down in the east market district, besides the fact that Trowa placed an order for a new mask every month, each elaborate and enough on it's own to keep the man in business. Duo ran his finger along the metallic edge of an eye piece and watched blood well on his skin. Razor sharp, the metal had been coloured so each triangular panel gleamed with orange and blue in the light. The mouth was frozen in a half grin that struck a chord in Duo's gut, some cruelty hidden in the expression he couldn't place. He put the mask down and continued on his way.

The apothecary had similar stories to the waitresses, hookers and muscle Duo spoke to through the day, well into the evening until even he would safely call it night. Not that you could tell, what with there not actually being a sun or anything to go by, but his internal clock was telling him time was passing and faster than he might have liked considering his results. The apothecary made a potion up for Bloom once a week, something to do with a cough that set a knot forming in Duo's gut as he agreed he was there to pick up the latest sample, which was overdue for collection and he hurried it back to the Cathedral to analyse, along with his findings. Or whatever the hell he was supposed to call his breadcrumbs.

There was a blinking light on the computer on Heero's bedroom desk. Duo stared at it for quite some time before deciding he could possibly do something about it. Then he stared at it some more because if Heero wasn't the good guy there was every chance if he touched it he was going to blow himself and possibly the entire Valley to kingdom come. Not that he minded blowing up the Valley, he wasn't attached to it at all, but his own life was a very different matter. He'd prefer to watch the Valley blow from a better vantage point. With a beer in hand from the comfort of his own damn bridge.

But his lips buzzed as he sat there staring at it and he found his hand rising, coming to brush fingertips against the warm memory of other lips pressed warmly against his own and at some point he supposed you just had to take a leap of faith and trust. Because it was that easy. Right. He was going to be blown to hell.

Sighing, Duo tapped the keypad and was rather proud of himself for not wincing as he did so. The screen came to life and his heart thudded into it's next beat, but that was all. On the desktop an icon was blinking and Duo glared. Was this just building a false sense of security, or what? Was he going to get used to clicking buttons until finally, at the end of a long stream of button pressing something finally exploded? Right when he least expected it?

He clicked again.

_Duo. Stop imagining me blowing you and the Valley to Hell. Right now. _

A dark blush crept up Duo's neck and he glared at the screen but there was more so he took a deep breath and forced himself to read the rest. Though, really, if Heero had a problem with him being untrusting he only had himself to blame.

_We're here. Won't take more than two days. Wu said check the apothecary and the jeweler. I love you._

Duo became aware of the soft hum of the Cathedral all around him. The only evidence of life besides his own in the ship. The ship itself, humming like the buzz between his ears as he stared at the screen. He reached out and slammed the laptop shut, got up and went to sit on the bridge. The seat smelt like Heero, and moulded to Heero's shape. Definitely not commandeered for the mission. Personal, loved...

Dream. He traced the image of the jewellery Trowa had gifted the whore with in his mind. The gentle balls of pearl, luminous in the otherwise garish light. The dulled gold stringing each along to the next, weaving an intricate web. Like the breadcrumbs, like wires in a system, connecting hubs of information. Like synapses in the brain. And the spaces in between...

Duo sat bolt upright in his seat and stared at his clues again, took out pen and paper and drew each from memory as best he could, each on plain white card so as not to distract him. He flicked through them, backward and forward, rearranged them in different patterns creating hubs of his own, threading smaller less important pieces off into smaller clouds of their own like a crazed mind map until Heero's bedroom walls were smothered in it and Duo sat in the middle of Heero's bed and stared.

"You're a fucking prick, Barton." But Duo was starting to comprehend the intricacy of Trowa's process, so very different from his own. Where Duo liked to have a plan, it was always straight to the point. Do this, get this result. Immediate and efficient. Trowa's plan was long lived, in depth and maddeningly convoluted, to get basically the same result. Only it would be permanent. Duo's might have killed the head of the snake, but smaller Hydra heads would survive and in time the problem would be worse. Trowa wanted to wipe Haze from existence. Duo hated that he was probably going to succeed.

It was because Wufei had given him the clue that Duo realised it and he sat staring at his drawing of the jewels for a long time, then he spent longer just laughing at it. He was still sitting there staring at it when Marie huffed in the doorway and he forced himself to sober up.

"Oh, so you're done now?"

"Where have you been?" He knew. She'd been at work, he'd checked. Numerous times. But that had been an awfully long shift, and he hadn't checked on her since he'd returned to the Cathedral and he really had no idea how long that had taken. He felt justified in trusting her not at all. She was Trowa's, and nothing that man did could be trusted.

"Working. Are you going to tie me to a chair and shout at me too?" Snarky snark.

"No," Duo shrugged and his nonchalance made her pause, staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. He barely resisted the urge to check in a mirror, almost certain that wasn't possible.

"No."

"Nope," Duo confirmed. "What do I care if you want to dance topless in the Valley?"

This was clearly not the response she had expected. Her mouth was deceptively small when it was closed. Hanging open it was a giant hole in her face that was actually pretty unattractive. Duo reached over and tapped on her chin to get her to shut it.

"I'm not Heero Yuy," he pointed out coldly.

"Well no shit, I didn't think I was hallucinating," she grumbled, but she was watching him like someone with a great fear of snakes watches a cobra, as if uncertain which way he was going to swing and where he would chose to sink his teeth. Duo grinned at her, making sure all his pearly whites were on display.

"You set Wufei up," he said calmly. Much calmer than he felt. He knew from the shock on her face that he had it right, that he'd always been right about her. That niggling something that hadn't sat quite right when he'd watched the tape of her declaring her undying love on her front steps. Wufei's shock. You couldn't fake the horror on that face before it had closed down, something shutting off while the reserves kicked in. Fight mode taking over from flight, like the good soldier he was.

"I would never...I love Wufei!" Naive, stupid little girl.

"But you did." And they both knew it. Duo felt suddenly old. Very old and heavy and tired and he remembered the look on Howard's face, stern and determined to make him take the Gig and maybe it hadn't been because of what the Gig was. Maybe it had been because Howard had his fingers on everything and knew the score. Maybe...there were just far too many maybe's and Trowa might have been the kind to pause and contemplate them all but it just wasn't Duo's style. Immediate results, that was what Duo liked.

The slap rang out, deafening the hum of the ship and the buzz in his head. His palm stung and tears brimmed in her clear blue eyes as she stared at him, looking hurt and dumbfounded. Looking young and stupid as ever.

"Trowa..." And there it was.

"Told you to?" Duo sneered at the incredulity on her face. How had he known? How could he ever understand?

Because he'd been that young and dumb himself. Once.

"Did he tell you what they would do to Wufei?" Would she even have understood if he had?

That was what he left her with, striding past her and out the door, leaving the Cathedral altogether, wondering how they did it, and wondering why there was always someone there to fall for it. Someone idealistic enough to assume everything would be alright. Why people weren't born cold; why it had to be learned. Why they hoped and dreamed and had _faith._ Look where that got them.

The memory of the sun was far, far away as he slunk into the corners of the Valley and disappeared.

It took him some time to calm down enough to approach with a clear mind, and when he thought he was ready he waited another hour to be sure before slinking up the alley toward the thick red chinese pillars. He heard him long before the Diner came into view and Duo found a nice shadow to lean into while he observed.

The Valley is a Maze, the maze is in a Haze.

It came down to breadcrumbs. And a hint from Wufei. Duo watched the man and really, he was incredibly out of it. The rotten teeth in his face were not fake; the fat tongue rolled back and forth against one, shaking it looser in the cragged face. The lines were deep and the brow naturally furrowed, the skin pocked and scarred with burns and disease. The silvered eyes were too wide, straining still to see against the glamour that must have closed over decades ago and he stumbled in the dirt and grime, sometimes almost upright but more often on all fours as if more animal than man.

What had he been like, before Haze found him? Had he ever been innocent, ever been good? How far back would you have to go to find a time when sunlight had touched the greyed and thinned hair that hung limp and clumped with filth around thin shoulders? How hard did you have to look to find a glimmer of that being, in that time?

Pretty fucking hard, as it turned out. Duo watched him for hours and never saw it. The man was a shell, eaten from the inside out and lost to the emptiness. But the whore had been too. Most addicts had nothing left, long after the addiction faded.

"The haze is in the maze. The maze is in the haze! Haze amaze! Crazy amazed! A maze of crazy in the haze! Just a passing phase? No! The maze!"

"Is in the haze," Duo muttered darkly, shaking his head and approaching on soft, silent feet. He wasn't fooled, flailing around to stare at Duo, leaning in to close the gap between them, until they were nose to nose and if Duo focused just so on the old man's silvered eyes he could just make out the shadow of his pupils between aching, slow blinks.

His breath stank like rotten cheese and his skin reeked of sweat and oil. Duo forced himself to ignore it, just waiting, shadowing every movement the man made. A hand lifted and Duo's did the same. A foot shifted and Duo's shifted with it. Slowly, the man's face relaxed and he swayed, as if rocking a small child. Like a snake.

Lips stilled and the swaying came to an end. Duo found himself standing there, nose to nose with him.

"Do you dream?" Duo asked softly and at first he wondered if his words were heard at all. The mouth remained open, fetid breath escaping in near visible clouds of breath. The eyes remained empty, unseeing. But very slowly they shimmered and tears brimmed, sliding silently down the rugged panes of his face, spilling over as if a dam inside had been broken.

"The Haze..." A near physical thing that had stripped everything human from him and left him where he was. Lost, to It. To the Dream.

"Hazy days are in the maze," Duo murmured and for a moment he second guessed himself because there was no recognition there, only the frozen rictus of pain as the man struggled to comprehend.

"The dream..." But he blinked, the silver eyes drying and his gaze shifted, his shoulders hunched as he lurched away, back toward the steps and Duo stood there and sighed, because he hadn't really thought it would work. The man was simply too far gone.

Duo was about to flee back to the shadows when the wild footfalls came back to his side and the man grabbed him, hard and fast around the shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides. It took everything in Duo not to throw the man hard enough to smash his head all over the damned ground.

"The dream...the place where we remember!" There was something in the depth of his silvered eyes, something haunted but determined. That sliver of self that remained, even after all the years and all the horrors he had endured. A speck that still heard, still listened, and most importantly still remembered.

"What do you remember?" Because that was the point, wasn't it? Trowa had left a map of clues who knew the way through the maze that was Haze. Just in case they'd been too stupid to realise they had the most important piece of the puzzle. Because they had Wufei, and Wufei still knew everything. Still remembered everything, even if he didn't realise he did. That was likely important, too, but Duo had neither time nor inclination to give it more thought than a lingering massive swear bubble he intended to burst over Trowa's head when he found him. Was it so hard to leave a note saying 'Wufei knows'? Seriously.

The hands around his shoulders tightened, slid higher until they wrapped around his neck instead and again it took everything he had not to snap the old addict's neck and leave his corpse there for others to puzzle over. Not that they would, not in the Valley.

He was struggling so hard to recall, to drag the memory forward through endless scorched synapses that Duo felt sympathy well up within. He let his air move slowly, felt his pulse hard against the filthy, calloused hands clinging to him and he felt his own face crack into a smile. Calm, soothing, friendly.

The addict smiled back and his grip loosened enough that Duo could drag air in, the whole world suddenly small and drawn in against his skin, evaporating into the moment.

"Air. It's in the air."

The light in his gaze went out, and something else in him was lost. Effort bled away and was replaced with compliance and Duo doubted the man would ever find even that small shred of himself again. The effort it had taken received no reward and was lost.

Duo shoved him away, hard in case anyone was watching, swore loudly and with annoyance and fled into the shadows. He went back to the Cathedral first, logging on to the computer on the bridge and searching for a map of the original L5 blueprints. He drew a new image over the original of what he knew of the Valley, slowly figuring out what part of the colony had been revived and locating possible sources for the rebuilt ventilation. There were limited possibilities considering the scavenged nature of Mettle Valley.

Of the three possible entry points he located, only one appeared heavily guarded. Thugs or mercenaries, it didn't really matter. It was clearly not what Duo was looking for and he left them alone, entering instead through the small office front. A front it was, though it was hard to tell. It was the clock that gave it away, frozen as it was. Duo stood there staring at it for a long time before he just shook his head and decided he wasn't that surprised.

1:21. How fucking quaint.

The office was abandoned and Duo stalked through the halls, aware of cameras and more importantly which were actually functioning and which were for show. He wove through the complex until he found a way into the ceiling, very aware that the inside of the vent he found himself in was clean. Squeaky, disgustingly horribly clean. If you were from the Valley. Relena would probably give it the thumbs up.

A maze was an understatement. Even with a torch and the map in his mind, Duo struggled to match where he was overhead with what he thought was below, sometimes having to push a vent open to check where he was, not an appealing situation to find himself in when you stared down out of the 'sky'.

The longer he spent in the vents, the slimier his hands began to feel and when he shone a torch on them he realised they had a silvery sheen to them and felt like laughing. It was in the air indeed. Hell, the whole Valley was on it. He resisted the urge to flee back to the Cathedral immediately, with it's clean filtered air. Just.

And regretted it when the panel above his head opened and from the corner of his eye something large and dark came down and collided hard and fast with his head. The dark of the ventilation shaft was nothing to the pitch that took him out.

He woke to a dark room and something flicking his nose but when he swung an arm to swat the annoyance away it slithered out of reach. He rolled and held his moan back but couldn't keep a hand from rising to cradle his head and the large bump there. Pain, but no blood. A good sign, in Duo's experience. Head wounds were a pain the ass at the best of times, let alone when you added some blood to the mix, and if it needed stitches they always wanted to shave his head and that was just not happening. Ever. He had a weird shaped head, and he liked his hair.

"What are you doing here?"

That voice! Duo turned and glared, taking in the ridiculous height, the broad shoulders, and bulging muscles that had to be drug induced. The clear, bright green eye staring out from behind the long, filth matted brown hair and rage rose in him, pushing out the pain. Pushing out everything and leaving him raw. His companion didn't have time to consider dodging a second time, because Duo didn't give his actions any thought.

Of all the violence and victories in Duo's life, nothing, not even seeing Heero Yuy's face alive and well after the Incident, had felt as good as his fist colliding with Trowa Barton's face.


	13. Chapter 13

13:

"OW!"

"Ow? OW? Are you fucking kidding me, I'll give you fucking ow you stupid, crazy motherfucker!" Duo launched himself at Trowa, taking advantage of Trowa covering his aching face with his hands to shower Trowa's gut in kicks and punches.

"Duo!"

"You are the sickest son of a bitch alive, you disgusting fucking fucker!" The barrage continued, mouth and fist and swinging legs. It took Duo a long time to realise Trowa wasn't fighting back, that he was just rolling with it, lessening each blow and allowing Duo to lose it. Lose it big time, too. He slowed as though withering and in the ache of the adrenalin fading he felt only a deep sadness and a well of confusion for that quiet melancholy.

"A fucking fucker? I thought you knew how to swear."

"Not all of us have been hangin in the Valley," Duo muttered, moving back until he hit a wall and then leaning back against it to catch his breath, watching Trowa struggle to sit upright and feeling no sympathy at all. A beating was the least of what Trowa deserved.

"I should hope not," Trowa muttered, staring at the blood in his hand when he pulled it away from his nose and glaring at Duo for a moment before he just sighed and shrugged it off. That annoyed Duo more than everything else, that he was so easily discarded. So simply forgiven.

"I think I broke your nose," Duo pointed out, and even to him it sounded childish to be so pleased about it. Trowa just smiled, a little wry and shrugged. He'd clearly had worse, and they both knew it.

"It'll suit the image." Mr. Smug? No. The drug lord one. The one Duo had wanted to destroy when he let his fist fly in the first place. Ironic that even by beating the guy up he was just helping him out some more.

"Duo. What are you doing here?"

"You sent for me?" Duo reminded him as if he were mad. "I'm the rescue party." And for once that didn't make him feel the least bit proud.

"Really?" Trowa sounded as dumbfounded by the action as Duo already felt and they stared at each other for some time, just letting the ludicrousness of their situation sink in.

"Doing a grande fucking job of it, aren't you?"

"Fuck off."

"Can't. Door's in the floor...it's easy enough to open, but..."

But it was a long way down. Duo stared at the outline of the vent in the centre of the room and had a brief moment to marvel at the genius of the cell. You could escape any time you wanted, but it was a one way trip, and even if you landed on some poor bastard it was the Valley, so it wasn't likely anyone would care.

"So Yuy is..."

"Taking Wufei and Hilde to test the cure."

"Right." But Trowa was frowning as if it didn't quite add up, which was weird because Duo was pretty sure they'd figured out that part of his plan pretty decisively.

"But?" Did he really have to ask? Of course he did, because it was Trowa and Trowa was a secretive little prick.

"What are you doing here?"

"Seriously?" Hadn't they covered this already?

"Seriously?" Trowa mimicked and they remained, staring silently at one another, for what felt uncomfortably long to Duo only Trowa seemed in his element and after a while Duo had to grunt and look away because the one eye was freaking him out a little.

"You told Marie to get Howard to bring me here, to pay Wufei's selling price?"

"No I didn't."

Well now, that was awkward.

"Yes you did." Because denial was definitely the best policy. The guy was probably just trying to fool him anyway, get a rise out of him, mess with his head. That was the sort of thing Trowa's did!

"No I didn't." He lied too, so that meant nothing. Right? Right! Only he really didn't look like he was lying and when Duo thought about it, not that he had a lot of time to think about anything while his brain was having a small meltdown right in front of the odd bastard, but he was trying and that was definitely the point. He didn't look like he was lying, and when Duo thought about it Trowa had no reason to lie, either. Did he? What possible motive could there be...

"Seriously. I didn't tell Marie anything. Why the hell would I involve a teenager in this? We're in the Valley for fuck's sake! Is she here? You brought a teenage girl to the Valley?" Incredulity didn't really suit Trowa, in Duo's never so humble and very much confused opinion.

"Technically, I'm not so sure she's a teenager any more? Do you know how old she is? I never bothered to check or anything...she's annoying as hell you know? And just to be clear, I didn't bring her. Heero kidnapped her and brought her here."

"Excuse me?" Well, when you put it that way, Duo supposed it did sound a little insane. He'd thought so too when Howard first gave him the folder and sent him on his merry gig to catch and detain Heero Yuy in Mettle Valley and free but return to house arrest his young captive. All of that had sounded certifiable and he might have given it more thought than he had if the idea of shooting Heero Yuy when he resisted arrest hadn't been so damn appealing.

"I was originally sent here to retrieve Heero for kidnapping Marie?" He scratched his head, not sure that was really helping even if it was starting at the beginning, more or less. If you really wanted to start at the beginning he supposed you had to go back to the Incident. Or maybe even the destruction of L5? Hard to tell at this point. He wasn't big on timelines to begin with.

"You were?"

"Well, I turned the gig down to start with but then Howard was all you're fired unless you go and I kind of like my job you know? And the old man, well he's like family only family isn't supposed to threaten to disown you for not going to work, they're kinda supposed to help come up with an excuse to take a sick day or something, but he totally didn't do that so I'm not so sure he really counts as family anymore, but the point is I took the stupid gig because there was a chance I would get to shoot Heero, and that would be pretty awesome, you know?"

"...Yup. Can see how that went down," Trowa slowly agreed, though he seemed a little more wide eyed than usual and it was obvious he was thinking pretty hard to keep up with the conversation, which was weird since he was supposed to be the mastermind behind it all.

"Still doesn't explain why you're the rescue party. Which, you're not, by the way. Since we're still stuck here."

"I'm working on it," Duo grumbled, and they both knew he wasn't. That they were stuck, which was why they had the time to have a conversation, and clearly they weren't being monitored or Trowa wouldn't be allowing conversation at all. It would be all glares and grunts until Duo gave up trying to talk to him and went to sulk in a corner. Instead there were questions and confusion and really...of course there were, this was Trowa!

"So I get to the Valley, do some gunrunning..."

"You did what?"

"_You_ cannot lecture me on crime!"

"Point." So that at least they had right. Maybe. Hard to tell, since they were pretty sure crime had been a part of Trowa's life pre-Gundams and all. Still, current predicament made it pretty clear crime wasn't that big of a deal to Trowa.

"I find Heero and Marie, only they say they're here on this top secret mission of Marie's, to save Wufei!"

"Why?" There was so much ferocity behind the question that Duo actually paused and took a better look at Trowa, studying the way he cradled his left ribs and starting to feel a tiny niggle of guilt that he'd probably just broken them. But only a tiny niggle, because the bastard deserved it.

"Because Wufei was being sold? He's a sneaky ninja, by the way? I mean even blind and drugged he damn near kicked my ass jumping out of a crate and stuff?"

Trowa was just glaring now, and Duo shrugged. Eventually someone would understand. Ninjas were dangerous! Way worse than guys who flew Gundams and blew shit up.

"So Marie says that's why I'm there, right? To pay the auction fee?" Only Trowa didn't seem to have any recognition of that at all and it made Duo frown, push off the wall and start pacing the room.

"When was the last time you spoke to Wufei?"

"When he arrived in Mettle Valley to track down the source of Haze."

It was definitely Duo's turn to stare. This had all been Wufei's idea? As what, some mental downtime hobby while Preventers investigated the mess with Marie? But hadn't Marie helped to set all that up? Didn't that mean Wufei had to be in on it?

"You guys...made the decision to track down the Haze source as a team?" He sounded skeptical, and with good reason. Nothing at all seemed to make sense any more, if it ever had. And if they hadn't been right the first time, what was to say Trowa wasn't lying this time? Maybe they really did have it right and Trowa was just sneakily trying to find out what they knew and throw him off track at the same time?

He was really getting paranoid.

"Not exactly," Trowa hedged. "But we needed a way to get Wufei some off Earth time away from Preventers and Marie was as easy a means as any. She has the most ridiculous crush on him..."

"Almost as big as the crush she has on you, Master Barton."

"That's...really quite gross," Trowa frowned at him, pushing himself back until he could prop himself up against a wall and watch Duo pace in a wide circle around the room.

"So you did get Marie to forge a diary that would have Wufei incriminated."

"Yes." Bastard deserved every kick and more. That Wufei had apparently been privy to the plan did not make anything better.

"But you didn't have Marie come here and buy Wufei and arrange for me to come find you. You left an awful lot of clues if you didn't want to be found..."

"I did not," Trowa grumbled, frowning darkly and looking as confused as Duo felt which was only slightly mollifying.

"How did you talk to Marie?"

"To her face, how do you talk to her?" That was a little insulting somehow, but Duo shrugged it off, fixed instead on the facts and the gnawing big hole Trowa was punching in his storyline of events.

"Not by message board?"

"What? No! Wufei set that stupid thing up for her so she could talk to him when he wasn't at work. Stupidest thing ever, but he insisted she be able to contact him if she needed something. Instead, it just fed her stupid crush!" The frustration in his voice was obvious and Duo wondered how many nights Trowa had spent waiting for Wufei to come to bed while Wufei insisted he just talk to her for a little longer, just until she was ready to sleep, just until she felt safe and...Yeah, Duo could see how that would get frustrating.

"She thinks you've been giving her orders on that message board."

But Trowa had already put it together. He'd slumped back against the wall, head pressed back against the cold metal, eyes closed and a grimace on his face. After a while he shook his head, reached up and pushed the hair out of his eyes, looking properly at Duo who just stared back and tried not to gape. Trowa's other eye was bright in the poor light, sparkling faintly, drenched in Haze. Blind.

"You...what the fuck man!"

"It's fine."

"You're an addict, man, I don't think it's fine! You're not supposed to try your wares when your wares turn you into a worm!"

"What? Duo...where the hell did you get the worm?"

"I don't know!" Did everyone have to keep fixating on the weirder shit that came out of his mouth instead of the point he kept trying to make? Haze was not okay! Using was not okay! Why did everyone else not see that this was not okay! NOT OKAY!

"Did you get Wufei?"

It was in no way a surprising question. To be honest, Duo had expected it to be Trowa's first and he'd been thrown for a loop when it hadn't been. Maybe he should have guessed things were amiss when Trowa had instead asked what the hell he was doing there. Pretty big difference in conversation initiator now that he thought about it.

"Yes. Got him out of the Valley, got him clean, though detox is a complete bitch and you owe me like a thousand pairs of new sheets? But then we brought him back here to help find you, only then we figured out the whole thing about Sahar and the cure and Heero took him to L3 to make sure it works."

Fury. Trowa's face changed so fast, for a moment Duo thought him possessed, or that he hadn't been speaking to Trowa at all and the true face of his partner in cell-share had finally shown his true face. But it was Trowa, just completely enraged.

"You're testing it on Wufei?"

"Isn't that why you made us buy him and get him clean? To make sure it works?"

"I didn't make you buy Wufei! I didn't know he was being sold! I didn't know he was even in the Valley! Last I knew he was Sahar's personal slave! I have no fucking clue what the hell shit is sprouting from your stupid fucking mouth because for the past three weeks I've been stuck in this fucking cell watching the Valley through a damn hole in the floor and surviving on the water that trickles through the vent from the damn air conditioning!"

Well now. Very awkward didn't really begin to cover it. But it was. Awkward. Duo stopped his pacing and frowned, staring at the way Trowa's shoulders rose and fell like a cartoon characters would, but no smoke came off Trowa or out his ears. He was just angry and hurt, and that part at least was Duo's fault even if he didn't quite feel guilty for it yet. And a little disappointed because smoke out of the ears would be something to see.

"You know, none of this is really making a whole lot of sense to me? I thought I had it all figured out, I mean I even found you from all those freakin hair brained clues you left, which were nuts even for you? So I was pretty sure Heero and I really did have it all figured out?" Even if he had for a short time suspected Heero was just in on it all with Trowa and they were trying to blow him and the Valley both to kingdom come.

"_You_ think it's not making sense?" The laugh that escaped Trowa was painful, and a little wet. It was the liquid that made Duo's gut ache. The suspicion that sneaked into the small thawed corner of his soul and whispered in the near silence.

_You were wrong. Again._ Wrong about so many things, it seemed.

"Why the fuck would you test it on Wufei? There's a million guinea pigs here! Every one of them guilty!" So much hurt was built up behind the words that Duo found himself at a loss, for words or anything else. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to find Trowa, have all their conclusions confirmed, beat the shit out of him and cure Haze. He was supposed to feel good at the end of it and go back to Howard with a fuck you on the gig register and a new job to attach himself to. Maybe go on a date with Heero.

"We thought you..." Told them to. The sound of his palm connecting with Marie's face came back to him in startling clarity, resounding loudly in his ears like a warning gong.

A tear rolled down Trowa's cheek and the man didn't bother to wipe it away or hide that it slid there. Duo doubted he knew it escaped. Doubted he was feeling much of anything. He looked like he was in shock. Looked betrayed, and Duo should know because he'd seen that look in the mirror a thousand times before the sun had slipped away and he'd let the cold in completely.

"But...the clues..." It was a last feeble attempt to explain his own actions to himself. It was also the last thing holding back Trowa's sanity. He laughed, a raw broken sound that echoed horribly in the small space off metal walls.

"Clues? What clues? Like breadcrumbs for you to follow? Why would I do that? Why would I ever need your help? Who would rely on you?" He was up, cornering Duo, pushing him into the wall and screaming in his face, silver eye glinting and green but a memory. Lost in the Haze of his own memories, and his own pain.

"You, who doesn't even own a phone for someone to call? You, who runs and hides but doesn't lie, unless of course it's to himself! You, who doesn't even know a birthday to decline an invitation? You, who doesn't even know if the man who's watched his back most of his life should really be called family, when he's the only one answering your damn emails and trying to keep you breathing, because he doesn't allow you to push him out of your life like everyone else and come up with a valid excuse for you to pull a sickie whenever it pleases your sensibilities to do so? You? I'd call you? There's no fucking number to call! There is no email to reply to! There's not even a photo to make me remember you exist! Why the fuck would I leave a clue for you? You wouldn't come unless you were forced and what sort of rescue party has to be forced to do the rescuing? You're not worth calling! You're not even here! You don't even know you're not here."

Pain. Like a fist of iron to the stomach. Duo folded over it, cradled himself to the sound of Trowa's laughter as he retreated back to his own corner and slid to floor, cradling his own wounds and laughing like the madman some part of him was. But Duo was lost to his own memories, to the pain of knowing deep down that Trowa was just speaking the truth.

Because the fist in his guts still felt real, like the betrayal he'd taken it as. Because he'd taken an attempt to keep him safe and out of harm's way as a diatribe on his lack of abilities, which if he was honest had never been questioned to begin with.

Because he'd then spent years pretending that no one even tried to contact him, while he did everything in his power to ensure he couldn't be contacted, and then blamed people like Howard for making sure he was so too busy to stop and think about anything at all, knowing the whole time that it was his choice. That all he had to do was say No, and he could change it all.

Because when Heero said the words I Love You, something inside him broke and took hold of that pain in his guts and let it erupt over and over in a vicious loop until he thought he would lose his mind and when it stopped it left him with a hole so large inside nothing could hope to fill it, because he'd ensured it was left empty and that emptiness wanted to swallow him whole.

Because there were no pictures, no photos, not even empty frames waiting for the memory to slip inside and hold fast. He'd let it all pass, let the photos accumulate on desks and walls far away, without his face in any of them.

Except Heero's. Heero remembered him. Heero waited, and just wanted to be let in. And it was that simple fact, and the memory of lips and warm breath that steadied him. Duo took deep breaths, listened in the dim light as the maniacal laughter slowly died, replaced with sobs and then heavy breathing and later still, with nothing at all.

As Trowa slept, Duo watched. Studied. Tried to piece together the old facts with the new and make sense of the non sensical. It was hard when his ever so helpful thoughts kept reminding him that Heero was off testing yet another drug on Wufei, while Wufei's lover was trapped here with him, both of them unable to do a damn thing about it.

Harder still when he remembered pushing the blood soaked sheets into the incinerator. Standing in front of his bathroom mirror trying to scrub the blood residue from stained nails. Listening to Wufei's ragged breathing in the dark, praying to whatever God may or may not exist that he just took another breath.

Why? Why had he agreed to test it on Wufei? Because Heero said so? No, Heero had the same misgivings. Because an end had seemed to justify a means? Because a cure would be such an incredible thing? What had blinded him to the fact it was Wufei? The whore's face that never quieted in his dreams? The eyes that stared at him from his own gaping well of guilt with silvery orbs?

"I'm sorry," was what finally managed to escape him, quiet but still breaking the silence when Trowa's breathing changed with his waking.

Trowa sighed and took a long time sitting up. He looked tired and worn. Hungry, which you would be Duo supposed after three weeks on limited water and zero nutrition. Lonely, too.

"I didn't mean...to say those things," Trowa admitted at last and Duo just shrugged.

"But you meant them." Trowa shrugged and they both sighed. Words were strange that way; once said it was impossible to take them back. You just had to move on. Like fists to the gut. Because Duo was clearly so good at putting the past behind him.

"Georgio Sahar sold Wufei?"

"To Marie," Duo agreed. "Though, admittedly he didn't know it was Marie, just some rich girl wanting a pretty toy, but..."

"I get the idea," Trowa agreed, and the idea clearly made him sick to his stomach but he was thinking about it. Which meant it was the part of Duo's story that confused him, which was weird since it was about the only part of the story that made sense to Duo anymore.

"You get everything else?" He was supposedly the mastermind behind it all, so that made sense, but Duo was starting to suspect Trowa wasn't quite the mega brain they'd been giving him credit for. Or he was, but that another manipulator was actually pulling the strings, since Trowa had been incapacitated.

"Is the cure complete?"

"...how the hell should I know?" As if he had anything to do with any of this! But he thought about it and wasn't Trowa supposed to know? Which meant three weeks ago the cure hadn't been ready. Was it really ready now, or were they about to shoot up Wufei with a dose of Haze? Something he was already addicted to. Which could push him over his pain threshold into lala land for life.

Life needed a save station and a replay option.

"The whole Valley is on Haze and they don't even know it," Trowa grumbled and it seemed to genuinely offend him which was a little weird since almost no one on Haze actually chose to be on it in the first place. But he knew Trowa would be equally offended for those victims, only...these ones, as he had pointed out, weren't innocent.

"I learnt that from your crazy friend outside the diner," Duo agreed.

"Are you just making this shit up as you go?" It seemed a rhetorical question so Duo saved himself a little dignity by not answering and allowing Trowa to continue. "We were going to test the cure here first."

Replace the contaminated air with the cure. That was pretty clever. And if it failed wouldn't change anything other than make a few thousand criminals detox for a few days until they got the Haze circulating again. No harm done? It was certainly a nicer way to go about it than testing it on Wufei, but then they'd been working on the assumption the drug was already tried and tested and ready to go.

"The cure won't fix the brain if you're already gone," Trowa pointed out coldly and Duo blinked at him, pretty sure that was obvious. "If you give Wufei Haze after detoxing, he might not last to see a cure."

That hadn't been a consideration. They'd assumed Wufei was fine, because the sneaky ninja kept saying he was. But they all knew he was lying so why hadn't they thought about the consequences? Because they'd thought they were doing what Wufei wanted them to do? Did they ask Wufei?

What the hell was wrong with him?

"So you didn't leave me any clues? They were pretty specific, are you sure you didn't? I mean there were like receipts with just ones and twos all over them, it was like tailor made or something!"

"Duo! I didn't leave you jack shit. If I had ever intended for there to be a rescue party, which I never would because we both know that's not how I operate..." And he had known that, recalled thinking that the only time Trowa would ask for help was if he got so deep into shit that he needed an army to get himself out. Or a few Gundam Pilots.

"But if you had, it wouldn't have been me," Duo finished for him softly, and somehow it hurt less to be the one to say it. To understand it and feel it deep down in his bones and know it was true only because he'd let it be so. That Trowa would have called, if there had been a number, and he'd felt he needed it.

"Heero would, if it makes you feel any better," Trowa noted quietly and that had Duo gaping at him. "If Heero was in trouble, it wouldn't be my number he would be calling," Trowa continued as if the words were actually making sense. "He'd find some stupid excuse to get Howard to send you to help him, and then he'd apologise a whole tonne and beg for you to give him a chance because he's a romantic idiot like that."

"I can't believe you just put Heero and romantic in the same sentence," Duo heard himself mutter but his thoughts were darker, seeing parallels he didn't like and his silence must have alerted Trowa to his thoughts. That, or there really was a window in his forehead that allowed people to read his mind.

"Heero Yuy did not set this whole thing up so you would come and think you were rescuing me so he could confess to you. Which I'm assuming, since you've so hilariously jumped to that conclusion, he's done? Begged you for a chance to try having a relationship like two civil adults instead of hiding on opposite sides of the planet and pretending you're not both butthurt by why the other did? Or really...didn't do?"

Duo scowled, but there was not a whole lot he could say to defend himself from...the truth.

"We're maybe...trying...or something."

"Halle-fucking-lujah," Trowa grumbled. "For the record, I don't actually care. I just can't sit through another luncheon with Yuy moping over a celery stick."

"Heero hates celery! He thinks negative calorie foods are useless and avoids them like they're going to contaminate his stomach with their uselessness."

"Exactly!" The ridiculousness of the conversation wasn't lost on either of them, but they were trying not to focus on the fact they were still very stuck in a sky cell without any food and Duo was getting very hungry. He didn't do well with 'hungry' and they both knew it. Were he Trowa, he would have taken the plunge by now. Maybe. Hard to say, he would have tried to find an alternative of course...

"So, there is a cure."

"Yes. Originally, no. We wanted to find the source of Haze and put an end to it, but then Wufei got caught by Sahar and when we looked into it we found out he was..."

"Sahar's toy, and an addict," Duo mumbled, trying to imagine how that realisation had gone down and thinking it wouldn't have been pretty. "That's why you trashed Quatre's mansion. I knew the dolphin story didn't make any sense!"

"I'm sure you're fucking up my life story in your stupid brain but sure, that's why I trashed the house." Had lost his shit completely. Duo had seen the leftovers. Quatre had gutted the place and just renovated while he could. Erased the evidence.

"So you came..."

"No, so we decided to make a cure. Before Wufei was captured he found out the main dealer was a man here, in the Valley, and that he had the whole Valley in his hand because he was controlling them with Haze in low doses."

"Through the air," Duo surmised, nodding to himself because that was actually pretty clever. You could do a lot, with the power of the Valley behind you.

"Quatre took over making the cure while I came here and infiltrated the drug ring."

"By infiltrate you actually mean took over," Duo pointed out, still angry that Trowa had felt the need to go that far.

"It was the fastest way to get what I wanted." Cold. Simple. To the point. If you were Trowa. To Duo it seemed crazy when you could just blow up the stupid colony. Again.

"But you got caught?"

"Sahar was here...we met. He realised I wasn't the same dealer..." Duh. That was bound to happen at some point. And then the rest had happened. Heero and Duo and Marie had come because Wufei was being sold, likely because Sahar was panicking and trying to cover his tracks and track down the cure, and...

"So you really didn't leave the breadcrumbs?" They'd all been things to do with Trowa, which was why they'd come looking for Trowa in the first place instead of just grabbing Wufei and making a run for it.

"Duo. Who has the power to force Howard to force you to take a gig?"

The one thing Duo hadn't stopped to consider, ever, was why Howard made him do it. He did it now. Howard had no reason to. If he'd wanted Duo to interact with the others, he could have done it any time. Handed him the phone, shown him an email, brought them up in conversation.

He hadn't. Had kept Duo's bubble in one piece every day, so what changed? Who could force family to turn against their own? The answer was so simple they were both laughing, Trowa because he thought it hilarious Duo hadn't figured it out, and Duo because his heart was so still easily discerned inside it's cold storage. So easily heard, torn from it's cage and manipulated.

"Quatre."


End file.
